![]() ![]() ![]() Lynley Dodd, who has written and illustrated numerous beloved picture books, says people are taken aback to hear that each one still takes a year to complete: “There’s a lot of sweat in making it sound like it was written at the toss of a hat.” Mem Fox rewrote the opening paragraph of Possum Magic, Australia’s most popular picture book, 23 times. What parent of a small child, faced with another tale of a baby animal or boggle-eyed alien, hasn’t silently reckoned, Surely I could do better? Chances are they couldn’t. Perhaps rookies like Madonna are to blame, or perhaps, at a few hundred words, such books look too slight to need much effort. When Penguin Books Australia invited submissions of picture book manuscripts recently, it was swamped with more than a thousand in just two weeks. Writers of picture books for children know that some people think what they do is easy. ![]()
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