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PrimaryEnglish

Emily Gravett – “Give children the freedom to write and draw”

Giving children the freedom to create without judgement can unlock incredible creativity, says Emily Gravett…

Emily Gravett
by Emily Gravett
Paddington Bear whole school resource pack
DOWNLOAD A FREE RESOURCE! Paddington Bear – Whole-school lesson plans & activity sheets
PrimaryEnglish

I think I remember the moment that ‘reading’ started to make sense for me. When I was small, my mum and dad – who both really valued books – stuck a selection of flashcards showing different words around my bed, and I’d look at them as I drifted off to sleep.

My favourite, for some reason, was ‘danger’; and I have a vivid memory of the excitement I felt when I spotted it in a Barbapapa album one morning, and made that connection.

I didn’t read properly until after I’d started school, though. My older sister had picked it up more quickly than I did, so I always felt a little ‘behind’ – although I don’t think I was, actually.

I can’t remember the process of teaching reading in the classroom, but I definitely recall the books they used, which were those ones featuring all the different coloured hats.

They weren’t especially thrilling stories, but I enjoyed the way you had to progress through the levels, eventually getting up to the dizzy heights of silver and gold. Competitive? Me? Well, maybe just a bit…

Escape routes

There were always books about at home, including lots with beautiful illustrations.

One of my favourites was The Giant Jam Sandwich – my dad was a print technician at Brighton Art School, where John Vernon Lord taught, and so that was the first time I started to get an idea about what it meant to be an author, and an illustrator.

Raymond Briggs also taught there, and Fungus the Bogeyman was another popular reading choice in our house.

When I was older, I got into the Swallows and Amazons books; I’m not entirely sure why – they don’t do a thing for me as an adult – but teenage me was a big fan. I’d read anything, though, pretty much.

In part, I suppose books gave me a way to escape the rough, rather intimidating secondary school I went to after leaving primary. I had some great teachers there, but I hated the whole experience, which I found intimidating and impersonal.

I got four GCSEs – three Cs, and an A in art – and made it through five months of sixth form before leaving to go travelling. I met my partner not long afterwards, and as we made a life together, I thought I was done with education.

Things changed when I had my daughter, at the age of 24, and started reading picture books with her. Suddenly, I realised that this was an art form that I could understand, and connect with.

As well as reading, I’d never stopped drawing – and looking back at the pictures I produced as a child, right through my teens and into my early 20s, they always had a narrative aspect to them.

Something clicked, and I thought, ‘I could do this!’ I badgered my way into Brighton University, despite having no A levels – a foundation course I’d taken in Wales, plus bloody-minded persistence got me a place, and whilst I found the first year and a half quite grim, once I realised that I didn’t have to take everything I was told as gospel, and that it was OK for me to pursue the kind of illustrating that I wanted to do, I got on much better.

Free and easy

Wolves was a project in my final year. I didn’t think at that time I was ‘creating a book’; in my head I was putting together a portfolio which I could use to pick up illustrating work after leaving university.

But it won the Macmillan Prize for Children’s Illustration, and got published, and everything else sort of followed on from that.

Despite my original intentions, I resisted offers to create images for other people’s text for quite a while; it turned out that I really relish working with words as well as pictures, using both together to tell a story, and I didn’t want to get my name too ‘attached’ to someone else’s writing early on.

However, I’ve since illustrated for both Julia Donaldson and AF Harold, and I’ve enjoyed that process, too.

I do think it’s important to let children discover for themselves the kinds of writing and drawing they prefer. In my final year at primary school, we were all given a blank journal, and told that we would be writing a book.

Once a week, for an hour or so, we’d work on our stories and illustrations; the teacher would look at what we’d done, and make a few corrections, but other than that, we were more or less left to our own devices.

Giving young people that freedom to create for sheer pleasure, and without judgement, is really important – and I hope that today’s teachers are able to find space in their timetables to do just that.


3 Emily Gravett treats for younger pupils

Meerkat Christmas

Like its predecessor, Meerkat Mail, this gorgeous festive package is full of flaps to lift, as Sunny the meerkat travels the world in search of the perfect Christmas. It’s a witty and heartwarming celebration of fun and family love that shows the season can be whatever you want it to be.

Tidy

Pete the badger likes everything to be neat and tidy at all times, but what starts as the collecting of one fallen leaf escalates – ending with the complete destruction of the forest. This is a cautionary tale, which delivers its message of environmental preservation with subtlety and humour.

Again!

It’s nearly Cedric the dragon’s bedtime – and so his mum reads him his favourite book. But then he wants it again, and again, and again; until she’s had enough, and he gets so cross he ends up burning a hole right through the pages! Funny and clever, this is definitely worth reading, um, again…

(all books published by Two Hoots)

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