It’s hard to believe that the next Katie book will be the twelfth in the series. The working title is “Katie and the Starry Night” and the focus is the paintings of Van Gogh.
I’m finding it hard to get started for several reasons – even though it’s a book I know I will love when I’m underway. It’s always hard starting a new story and staring at a blank sheet of paper. But Van Gogh has so much “legend” surrounding his name that it’s especially hard to be fresh and child-like in my approach. None of the Katie books really touch on the painter or his life and times. Sometimes a theme will emerge that resonates a little with the themes in the pictures, and I always try to draw that out: So the town and country during the Industrial Revolution were on my mind in Katie and British Artists, so eloquently symbolised in The Fighting Temeraire. The contrast between royalty and peasants was at the heart of Katie and the Spanish Princess, a theme that felt very appropriate with Velazquez and Murillo’s subjects in stark contrast.
But with Van Gogh, the themes – as we tend to see them – are more emotional. We see his struggle in the brush-strokes, his mental collapse in the colours. We know of his ear-lobe incident and his suicide. How can they even begin to be touched on?
Can the idea of emotion in paint be a theme for young children? Or is it just too abstract? Ultimately my editor will guide me here. In the end it needs to be a book with child-appeal. There’s no point creating a book that no-one wants to read. But I do want to capture something of the man himself rather than just romp through his pictures in an inconsequential way.
I think the theme of stars, night-time, dreams and wishes will be useful ones. They are my starting point at the moment. But who knows which direction the story will go? In the end, I find stories have a mind of their own and I am simply the copywriter.
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