Entertain the littlies this summer

As the summer holidays continue we invite you to throw a bit of a party and celebrate the release of an UnBEARably funny new book by superstar author illustrator Emma Dodd.  

The Entertainer by Emma Dodd

Our Hay Festival Adventure 2014 - Part 1

Anticipating glorious sunshine and countryside, Templar Publishing embarked on a journey to a very wet Wales last weekend for Hay Festival; a truly exciting celebration of literature and the arts, with very special children’s authors and events.

We were lucky to have five authors and illustrators invited this year, with the first of two sold-out events on Saturday hosted by Jonny Duddle, creator of The Pirate Cruncher and Gigantosaurus.

Dressed as a swashbuckling pirate, Jonny read excerpts from his fantastic adventures into children’s books to a captivated audience. Breaking the spell, he then went on to demonstrate his artistic talent for drawing pirates amid plenty of piratey ‘arrrrghhhhhhs’ from the crowd.

Aaron Blecha – Ten Monsters In The Bed

Ten Monsters in The Bed, illustrated by the super Aaron Blecha, is a humorous play on 10 Green Bottles/10 in a Bed, where 10 monsters are squished together on a bunk bed.

On each spread, a monster gets pushed out and tumbles to the floor. Readers can press the characters to hear the fun sounds they make; plenty of snoring, burping, sniffing and farting!

Aaron invited us to have a sneaky peek at a few early stages of the Ten Monsters in The Bed book design, check these out!

Character Development:

Olive and the Bad Mood written and illustrated by Tor Freeman – Reviewed by Holly Surplice

Olive and the Bad Mood
By Tor Freeman

Olive and the Bad Mood by Tor Freeman is something that grown-ups & little people can all enjoy & relate to because lets face it, who doesn't get in a bad mood from time-to-time?! My nearly four year old was totally engrossed in the story and loved the unusual and abrupt approach of the grumpy Olive! She really enjoyed pointing out when Olive was being unkind, and sympathising with the other characters.


The fantastic use of white-space in this book makes it clear to see what is going on and really emphasises the main character's journey through the book which makes for a really lovely page-turning experience. The very clever visual description of a bad mood is brilliant done, and I love how contagious that little black cloud above the head is! Even without reading the words, this picture book has such clear visual narrative that it is one that non-readers can enjoy 'reading' by themselves which I always think is a wonderful thing.


For me, I found myself reminded, in a really great way, of Richard Scarry's Busytown books which I loved as a child, there is just something that is so funny about the characters that Tor has created for these books that I'm sure will lead them to be classics too. This very clever & witty book with universal appeal to both girls & boys is a great addition to any bookshelf, and has the bonus feature of teaching a very important lesson, what ever happens, you must ALWAYS share your sweets!

This review was written by Holly Surplice Follow her on Twitter @HollySurplice

GP by very talented Holly Surplice!

Visit Tor Freeman's blog here http://www.torfreeman.com/ 

Find out how to draw Olive HERE  

Illustrating 'There, There' – By Ivan Bates

Illustrator Ivan Bates tells us about the process of illustrating There, There, written by Sam McBratney.

There There is my fifth book with Sam and he always makes illustrating very easy to enjoy. With faultless pace, tender emotion, and characters you want to embrace (often literally) he has consistently given me all the things I need to turn little seeds of ideas into blossoming pictures, and There There was no different.


My part of the story began with those bears. Hansie simply had to be seen. He started off as a doodle but the little fellow just wouldn't stay still. He kept flowing out of the end of my pencil and onto the paper, insisting that I do more. He knew that I liked drawing ducks, (believe me, I've drawn hundreds) and he wanted to follow and play with them on the drawing pad, so I let him. It wasn't long before that little scribble had turned into a duck-walking, ditch-falling, cuddle-getting, bouncy little bear.


Dad bear, however, started life as a hat. An old straw one, that was a bit frayed at the edges, a bit like the one I can just about remember my grandfather wearing, when I was very young. He gradually appeared from underneath this hat, all tufty and brown, complete with his slightly scruffy sports jacket and glasses, as if almost by magic. It was certainly a less conscious process than some characters I’ve created, in the past. I could easily imagine him trying hard to set veg in his garden - not always very successfully. In fact I'm pretty sure that it was Mum bear who really knew what to do and was not surprised when Dad got into a scrape himself, hence her expression when picking out the thorn from his foot.

Characters often live alongside you, when you’re illustrating. Before any final art is done, they have already lived a full existence in your head and you’ve imagined them in all sorts of funny situations. It is as if the book is just a snapshot of what you know they're like and what they've been up to, all along. Small and inquisitive Hansie bounces along in his haphazard way, while enormous Dad is watchful, (he’s always close by) patient and most importantly, is always there when he’s most needed.

And it was capturing the emotion in those 'most needed' moments that was perhaps the key to the whole book, for me. There are few feelings that compare to comforting and cuddling your child. It is almost as if, for that time, the rest of the world doesn't exist - just you and them. And that was what I tried to show in many of the illustrations. If the reader can share and enjoy that same feeling of intimacy, from my art in the book, then I would consider that to be a success. I mean, who wouldn't feel good having a long, gentle hug from a big Daddy bear?

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

Guest Post: Ophelia Redpath

Ophelia Redpath's beautiful new picture book, The Lemur's Tale, publishes with us January 2013. Ophelia has written us a guest post all about her inspiration for the book and her fantastic family history!

My new picture book, The Lemur’s Tale, has been a long time in the making. I’m a very slow worker, and am always amazed when I finish anything!

Now I’m smiling, knowing that my ring-tailed lemur, Earl Grey, has finally scurried into the shops. He is happy to wear a dust-jacket and bed down onto a shelf for a while. But he’s getting curious about his next leap. Perhaps he’ll find himself in a school, or a hospital, or a library. Or, best of all, by a child’s bed, slowly getting to know his reader, sharing dreams of the world he belonged to……..

The inspirations behind this book are fourfold: There is David Attenborough. There’s my grandfather. There’s my grandmother. And there’s my daughter, Sally.

As did many British children of the 70s and 80s, I grew up watching Attenborough’s Wildlife on One. When I was about nine, lemurs sprang nimbly onto the screen. I immediately fell for their stripes, their poise, the way they communicated, and their lush, leafy neighbourhood. At one stage I think I wanted to be a lemur. But growing a tail was tricky, and I had homework to do, so I grew upwards and went to boarding school instead.

My grandfather, Leonard Campbell Taylor, was an artist, brought up in the Victorian era. Known as “The English Vermeer”, he painted scenes of intimate moments staged in structured interiors. All his works involve an interplay of light and shade, and mark out the intense character in his sitters’ faces.

My Grandmother, Brenda Moore, was a professional artist herself. When I was small, I watched, agog, as she turned water-logged paper into delicately sculptural flowers, glowing with colour. In 1986, at a loose end, and with no career plan, I stayed with her in her old mill which smelled of incense and dried bulrushes. We drew, painted and squiffled ginger wine. Soon, she and I were planning exhibitions, pricing paintings, arguing about titles, framing badly with araldite and a DIY mitring kit, swearing and laughing all day. It was all such fun, so companionable and so free, I simply didn’t realise I’d become a professional painter and would remain one for 25 years. She gave me a faith in creating something out of nothing. I had no obvious plan, no letters after my name and nothing in the bank! Trying to fit this way of life into the world of intermittent recessions and a fickle art trade has been my challenge, but one that I have not regretted, as without it, I wouldn’t have my lemur!

Ophelia feeding the Lemur's - photo by David Johnson of the Royston Weekly
For more pictures, visit our Facebook page: http://on.fb.me/WWDWBt

I started my book four years ago when my daughter, Sally was born. Spending time with her changed my tack on story-making. As soon as she was able to talk, she told me stories. As I told her mine in return, she added to them with great purpose, using very specific and interesting details. I’ve loved them all. Since then I’ve been mulling over what children like to think about; what can weigh on their minds, what makes them laugh, and how story-telling can provide companionship for them through their ups and downs.

During these last few years, there have been many helping hands along the way. Great support from Mum, family, and friends; a wonderful writing class in Cambridge, and piles of magical children’s picture books to inspire me.

I’m delighted David Ford and Brett Brubaker took me on and introduced my work to Templar; and that Templar said “Yes”! I’m deeply grateful to Amelia Edwards, the Art Editor of Art Editors, whose experienced hands I felt so safe in; to Penny Worms, Literary Editor who tended to each word with such loving care – even after bedtime. And to Daniel Devlin, who patiently coaxed my illustrations to settle down and behave themselves on the pages. I feel very fortunate to have worked with such sensitive and knowledgeable people.

Hand-signed and numbered Limited edition prints of illustrations from The Lemur’s Tale are available at www.opheliastory.co.uk Password – littleghost

See more information about my book at www.zhibit.org/opheliaredpath My other works – originals, prints and cards are represented at www.opheliaredpath.co.uk