Bear and Duck are Friends by Sue deGennaro
(Published by Little Hare an imprint of Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing)
Inside the CBCA Shortlist
Inside the 2024 CBCA Shortlist
Bear and Duck are Friends is an HONOUR BOOK in the CBCA 2024 Book of the Year Early Childhood category.
“Duck loved trying new things. He was enthusiastic about everything. Bear was a little more cautious. New things often ended in a bump or a crash!” (Bear and Duck are Friends)
Author/Illustrator Interview: Sue deGennaro
Congratulations on your very special Bear and Duck are Friends being CBCA shortlisted, Sue, and thank you for speaking to PaperbarkWords blog.
Bear and Duck are Friends is a lovely study of friendship. It showcases two very different best friends and contrasts their exuberance and lack of self-confidence. Many picture books for the very young focus on two friends. Yours is in the high-quality category of these books, and is now rightly recognised in the CBCA shortlist.
Tricky for the creator to answer but what do you think makes your book special or sets it apart?
Luck.
All books created in any single year are amazing. Someone has sat down and wrestled ideas, characters and plot. This could take years. They have doubted themselves, felt inspired and possibly even had their ideas rejected. But if the book is on the shelf, the creators kept turning up, and that takes courage.
Your characters come to life on the page. How have you shown and developed their personalities through illustration in Bear and Duck are Friends? (You may like to refer to an illustration to exemplify your answer.)
Creating a character turn around is where I start. A character turn around is where you see the front, the back and the side of a character. From there I get them moving. I put them in as many positions as I can think of, this is how their personality is revealed.
Duck invites Bear to dance-class. Apart from Bear, all the participants are ducks. Why all ducks? Is there a reason for that or are you suggesting something here?
In the story Duck is inviting Bear into their world, a world of ducks. For Bear, stepping into Duck’s world makes him nervous. Funnily, Bear ends up being a Duck out of water.
What media and process have you used to create your illustrations?
I used a combination of traditional and digital techniques. For the flowers I used rubber stamps. I scanned them and created the image digitally in photoshop. I used a Wacom table to draw the pencil lines and digital collage to complete the illustrations.
Your style and tone in Bear and Duck are Friends is refreshing. Is there any other way you would describe it? Have you achieved this through your colour palette and clarity of line? Anything else? If so, how have you achieved this?
My style is really a process of trial and error. I spend a lot of time redrawing each illustration, deciding on a limited colour palette and trying to get it all to work together cohesively. I equally spend a lot of time trying to keep my line work simple and full of energy. Sometimes with redrafting and reworking your lines work tightens up, a loose free line is what I am always trying to create.
Your story begins and ends in an outside setting. What are you particularly pleased with in your representation of the outside in this book?
I love the water created on grid paper on the last page and of course the flowers that I have already mentioned. I also created a sweet animation of the flowers bending in the breeze. The colours were also created with cut out stamps, the tiny little square cutouts in the clouds makes me very happy
Please tell us about the commonality between the books in your impressive backlist.
All my picture books, the ones where I have been both author and illustrator, have connection and kindness at the heart of all the stories. My books often look at being scared, getting things wrong or trying to find your voice and be brave.
What impact has Bear and Duck are Friends being recognised as a CBCA Shortlisted Early Childhood of the Year had on you or this book?
Being shortlisted is a huge honour. We sometimes spend years creating these simple stories. It is so wonderful to have all that effort seen.
Bear and Duck are Friends at Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing
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