October 2014 Debut of the Month Children's imaginations will run wild after reading this delightfully spooky story. Katie May Green is a stunning new talent in the world of picture books. It is an evocative and magical book filled with free-spirited joy and unforgettable images.
This is a truly original picture book full of atmosphere and magic that is perfect for children with wild imaginations and anarchic spirits! In a big old house, up creaky stairs, in a silent little nursery full of dolls and teddy bears, you'll find the children of Shiverhawk Hall. They're children in pictures on the wall - seen and not heard...So begins the story where we meet dainty little Lily Pinksweet, the Plumseys, clever Billy Fitzbillian, kind Percy and the De Villechild twins (who are perfect angels)...They all look so sweet and good, just like children should, but when night-time comes and there's no one to see, the children climb out from the quiet of their picture frames and they run riot and they run free!
Inspiration struck the author in a museum where she came across a portrait of four children, and began wondering what these stiffly-clad, sombre-looking little people were really like. Katie says, “My thoughts then became a little more abstract: what would it feel like to be trapped in a painting for four hundred years? Would there be any kind of release? Perhaps, with a little moonlight, a little magic . . .”
Katie May Green is a graduate from the Cambridge School of Art MA in Children's Book Illustration. She has created artwork for UK and US publishers including HarperCollins, Penguin and Oxford University Press.
Seen and Not Heard is Katie's first picture book. She says, of the inspiration behind it, I remember standing in front of an Elizabethan portrait of three children, wondering what these stiffly-clad, sombre-looking little people were really like. Were they, in their time, so very different from children today? My thoughts then became a little more abstract: what would it feel like to be trapped in a painting for four hundred years? Would there be any kind of release? Perhaps, with a little moonlight, a little magic...
