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Good Reading : June 2010
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26 goodreading ı JUNE 2010 Gregory Rogers is talking to me over the phone from his Brisbane home. He talks about his swap from a career in graphic design to one in illustration, and I can hear his passion for illustrating stories from the moment he tells me, 'Oh, I love it! I'm glad it happened that way. I've found my niche.' Gregory committed almost eight years to his three-book 'Boy, Bear' series. The first, The Boy,The Bear,The Baron, The Bard, introduces 'The Boy', who enters Shakespeare's world and befriends a captive bear.Together, with other characters they meet along the way, they run from William Shakespeare, who is the villain in this comical portrayal of Elizabethan London. Gregory has always been fascinated by the Elizabethan period. He says in the prelude to The Boy,The Bear: 'I saw my chance to share those harsh, dirty, brutal, beautiful times with others.' Gregory initially created the series with words and pictures, but 'I tried and tried to write things in various for ms -- it just didn't seem to come together in a way that I was happy with'. He decided to change the layout of the book in a meeting with his publisher, Allen & Unwin. 'It flashed into my mind that I had always wanted to do a wordless picture book ... I just made the suggestion: How would it be if we did it wordless? It then took about half an hour at the computer for me to type out a storyline. So, it was always there bubbling away under the surface, as if that story was just waiting to be discovered.' If you haven't yet discovered the 'Boy, Bear' series, you might recognise Gregory's work from one of scores of picture books he has illustrated, including Libby Hathor n's Way Home, for which he was awarded Britain's esteemed Kate Greenaway Medal in 1995, Tracks, Lucy's Bay and The Rainbow by Gary Crew, Auntie Mary's Dead Goat by Margaret Card, Leaving no Footprints by Elaine For restal and the recent 'Willy Waggledagger' books by Martin Chatterton (also with a Shakespearean theme). a good story GREGORY ROGERS tells MELISSA BROMBAL why he loves creating and illustrating stories. up close Gregory Rogers
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