A Boy, A Troll & some Chalk

Ann Booth reveals more about her latest picturebook, the collaboration with David Litchfield the books' illustrator. A beautiful and moving story with an incredible heart, all of which come out through the words and pictures. Ann's story is moving and incredible, enjoy reading her story about the story. My thanks to Ann for taking the time to share her thoughts with us for this Blog.

I don’t really know how I wrote the story of The Boy, the Troll and the Chalk, in the sense that I didn’t sit down intending to write a text about the importance of Art, or Friendship, or Creativity, or self-esteem, or not judging others, but I had the first line ‘Everybody knew that a big, fierce troll lived in the cave’ in my head, and having written that, the rest of the lines seemed to follow naturally. I do know, like my first collaboration with David Litchfield, A Shelter for Sadness, that the story comes from somewhere very deep inside me and is about something I have experienced and feel very strongly about, and so it has its own truth and energy for me and was very satisfying to write. 

I was very happy when first my agent and then Templar accepted it, and more than happy that the wonderful David Litchfield agreed to illustrate it. I love that the story spoke to him too – his dedication ; ‘For Gareth, Neil and Paul, thanks for bringing me out of my cave’ was wonderful for me to read, and confirmed what was abundantly clear from his amazing illustrations, that he completely ‘got’ the story.

The story deals with something that I have noticed a lot in life – that often, when you are most miserable and needing a hug, that is the time when you push people away. Grumpy people can be very off-putting and not nice to be around, and yet they are often desperately in need of friendship. My dedication to my husband is because he is so empathetic and patient, and I am so lucky because I have experienced him listening very carefully to me when I have been grumpy, and instead of reacting angrily or going away, staying around and inviting me to do something creative or fun with him. He is especially good at encouraging me to do Art, which always makes me happy. He understands that when I am feeling bad about myself, or sad about something happening in the world, or worrying about something, it can be hard for me to come out of my cave and believe I am worthy of attention, or to do the things which make me happy. He gives me space and doesn’t intrude into my personal ‘cave’, but he also doesn’t take me completely at my word and so he doesn’t go away and leave me alone when I am feeling terrible about myself, and I know how life-changing and healing that can be and how lucky I am. I hope that this book will encourage both children and adults to be as kind as Graeme, to others, but also to themselves!

I think that our culture is too perfectionist and encourages us to make snap judgements about people and ourselves.  We need to forgive each other and ourselves more. The pace of modern life means that we often don’t give each other enough time, or make enough allowances for mistakes, or allow people to change, and when someone tells us in words or shows us by their actions, that they are not worthy of love, then maybe as individuals and as a society we need to challenge that more. I think it is very hard to deal with angry, fierce, people who yell, and I am not a therapist or teacher or social worker or nurse or anyone on the front line, but I am so grateful that there are people out there who listen carefully, watch, and wonder about why people act the way they do.

 I think that children’s self-esteem can be very low, because of constant judgement on and off social media, by adults and by their peers. As a writer going into schools, I have been told by teachers that constantly being judged and evaluated is affecting children’s self-confidence and creativity when writing stories. Grammar is important, but if a child is analysing and anxiously trying to remember the names of grammatical structures at the same time that they are writing a story, they can’t relax and create from somewhere deep inside them and experience the fun and joy that such creation brings. We know how important it is to read for pleasure, and there needs to be more space for this, as well as writing, drawing, playing music, dancing, being creative, just for the fun of it. 

I absolutely love how David has interpreted my words and created such wonderful illustrations. I love how he has captured the troll’s shadow we can see lurking inside the cave, and I love how the end pages are full of drawings come to life, and the fun and companionship that creativity and love and friendship can bring us, and the joy of drawing the world!

The Boy, the Troll and the Chalk by Anne Booth, illustrated by David Litchfield is out now, published by Templar.