Guest post from Emma Yarlett!

Today we have a guest post from the lovely Emma Yarlett, whose debut picture book 

Sidney, Stella and the Moon is out today! 

Well hello there! I’ve somehow wandered from my studio at home in Cornwall, onto your screen as Templar’s guest blogger of the moment… and what a pleasure it is to meet you! My name is Emma Yarlett (well almost, I get married in exactly 33 days), but before all that fun, my very first authored and illustrated book will be published by the wonderful folks and folkettes at Templar; Sidney, Stella and the Moon! 

It’s all about a miniature twin duo called Sidney and Stella, and their escapades with the moon, a very bouncy ball and a length of extremely stretchy skipping rope. Together they get up to lots and lots of fun and mischief until… disaster strikes! And something very big, very important and very noticeable is dislodged from the sky and smashes like a dinner plate outside their window. Oops.

Needless to say, this book wasn’t inspired by my own accidental adventures smashing the moon, but it has been very inspired by the moon itself in a funny kind of way. My dad absolutely loves astronomy, and when I was a kiddiwink he would set up telescopes in our back garden and show me and my sister the moon and all of it’s craters, the stars and their constellations and the beauty of the night sky. My mum would then make up stories with us as we went to sleep, and I would have wonderful dream adventures flying around the starry night. Since then, I have always loved the beauty of nighttime and the captivating magic that it holds… So much so, that when I decided that illustration was the thing for me, the night sky became a real focus in my illustrations (something that you will notice even more in my second authored and illustrated book with Templar, which I have just began working on!).

However, this book began way back in 2010 as a university project whilst I was in my final year studying at Falmouth University. Since then is has been to London, New York, Bologna Book Fair, Leicester and then back to Cornwall where it has grown, matured, dramatically altered, been took to pieces, rejiggled then and put back together again… And finally culminated in the book that you see today, ready to be read by you and (hopefully) lots and lots of little people! Made with paint, collage, magic, pencil crayon, typography and love this is very much a book for little people, created to take them beyond the realms of the ordinary and into the excitement of an adventure in the comfort of their own imagination.

And here we are! This book has been a complete labour of love, and I feel as though I have achieved a whole new level of perseverance (if you are an illustrator just starting out…. Keep going! It will all come together and be worth it in the end)… Sidney, Stella and the Moon! Finally published this month, with a million man-hours behind it; A book created to take little eyes and little hearts on a magical misadventure through the world of a troublesome duo…. Sidney and Stella cannot wait to meet you.

For more about the creation of Sidney, Stella and the Moon, please check out Emma’s blogging mini series at www.emmayarlett.tumblr.com or on her website at www.emmayarlett.com