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Toy Tales
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Background Information
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| On one of our trips to the U.S we found this wrecked up old duck in a junk shop. I had to buy him. He seemed to have a story to tell. At home there was a letter waiting for me from my editor. "Have you thought of doing a series of four small books with really short stories?" she wrote. Four stories about Duck or four different toys? The prospect of discovering three new characters was too tempting to resist. I already had a beanbag Frog with rice stuffing. Not quite right for the book, but I used him for a model and changed his eyes and fabric. I knew another of the toys would be my small squashed bear. That left one. The story of a piggy bank who becomes a toy was the first text that was completed. Something about the way money rhymes with tummy. I couldn't resist it. At the beginning of the story Pig, it has to be said, has a rather snooty, and avaricious, personality. I echoed this in his appearance with the golden band around his tummy ,and the mincing gold hoofs. I didn't have a model for Pig at first, but eventually, just as I was going to start drawing, a metal Pig arrived in my life. Although he didn't look any thing like the Pig in the story, he was the same shape and the light bounced off him in the same way. Models needn't be faithfully rendered in the pictures. All the toys belonged to the same small boy, Timothy. The stories take place in the same setting - Timothy's house, and each of the toys take supporting roles in the other stories. There are also supporting characters who appear in the pictures. Most notable of these is the cat, who causes much of the damage. All the toys face some sort of trauma. They survive and are transformed by finding something new and positive in themselves. Its the universal theme of broken toys being fixed. Although Tim is only a background character the stories show his positive attitude when faced with calamity. He finds silver linings in the blackest smashed toy clouds. And of course, the toys who have been through the nursery wars become the most loved of all. An enlarged, omnibus, edition of the Toy Tales, will be published sometime in the year 2000. With revised, and even some new art-work, it's really worth a look. PS Check out the Pig coins. |
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