Peter Gilderdale has worked as an Egyptologist, an art historian, a calligrapher and senior lecturer of Communication Design at AUT. This is Peter’s fifth Little Yellow Digger book, continuing the legacy of his late mum, Betty. He has previously penned The Little Yellow Digger ABC, The Little Yellow Digger Saves Christmas, The Little Yellow Digger and the Big Ship and The Little Yellow Digger Finds Treasure. Peter talks to NZ Booklovers.
Tell us a little about The Little Yellow Digger and the Helicopter.
It’s the tenth book in the Little Yellow Digger series, but the first to include a helicopter. In it a flood rips away a bridge and cuts off a town. The only digger that can be choppered in from the busy building site on the other side of the river is (surprise, surprise) the Little Yellow Digger. It then helps shore up the town’s stop bank and is feted by grateful townspeople. It’s a straightforward story, but it does include a heap of exciting machinery.
What inspired you to write this book?
My then two-year-old grandson, Ari, was fascinated by helicopters, so I really wanted to write something that played into that. I got the idea of a digger being carried by a helicopter quite quickly, but it took a good six months to find the right situation for that to seem natural. The breakthrough came when Scholastic reached out to see if I wanted to do something about a flood – that being topical. I was keener on the helicopter idea, but then realised there was a way to combine the two.
What research was involved?
Observing my grandson’s predilections perhaps counts as research, but there were two other crucial things that really needed to be researched properly. Firstly, I had to satisfy myself that a digger could be carried by a helicopter, so I delved into digger weights and the carrying capacity of large helicopters. I figured it was possible, and that was confirmed when, a week later, I read an article about a real digger being carried by a helicopter. The second part was finding out how emergency stop bank repairs might be carried out. This meant going through heaps of council guidelines etc. In the end, I got enough of an idea to work out the things a digger might be able to help with in the process. However, the point here was to get to something plausible rather than it being 100% factual – it is, after all, fiction rather than non-fiction.
What was your routine or process when writing this book?
My process is not one I would recommend to young writers, but it seems to work for me. Basically, it involves mulling the problem until I achieve a very particular feeling – one where I just know that the story is sitting there, waiting to be written down. Without that certainty, anything I write seems to stall. With it, I don’t even have to know where the plot is heading, I just know that the story is ready to be told, and that it will unfold for me. Once I have that confidence, the writing flows. Sometimes this comes very quickly. That was the case with the Little Yellow Digger finds Treasure, where, on my way to the bus, I heard a child’s comment and had five or six stanzas of the book written in my head by the time I got to work and could finish it when I got home. With this book, though, I was walking around with the basic idea for several months, but it wasn’t until I figured out the background scenario that it all fell into place. Then, I was able to write the first draft in the course of an afternoon.
Once I have that first draft, the more substantial part of the writing then kicks in and I keep revising for weeks and months. I initially like to lay the piece aside until I’ve forgotten it a bit, and can return to it fresh. Then it is just worrying away at it until it becomes smooth. I like to get the family to read it aloud to me periodically so that I can hear where they trip up. The hard work goes into getting rid of the places where words are shoehorned into the rhythm. The text has to flow naturally, and in places achieving that can be really challenging. Once I am confident in the text, I send it to Scholastic, and that starts a whole new round of editing, where the story tightens up further. I enjoy that part of the process, as it challenges what I have done, and I have to either articulate why something has to remain the way I wrote it, or accept that there is a better way, and not be precious about it. Basically, it’s a process of maturing something from its infancy to the point it can head out the door and survive on its own without you.
How did you work with the illustrator, Fifi Colston.
Fifi first started working on the Digger books when Scholastic got her to do the minor edits to the illustrations in the Little Yellow Digger ABC. She was the natural person to carry on with subsequent books and has done a great job of taking my father’s illustrative style and gradually evolving it.
In terms of how we work together on the book, the short answer is that we don’t. Scholastic like to ring-fence illustrators, so we basically don’t communicate during the process. This allows the illustration to evolve without the author getting picky. I get to see a well-developed rough and comment on that, as do the editors. Fifi then finishes it on her own. We did, this time, have a bit of a chat about the stop bank repairs, as she was unclear about that process, but otherwise the illustrative vision is all hers.
If a soundtrack were made to accompany this book, name a song or two you would include.
Such a hard question! Fortunately, my wife (the keeper of Spotify) was able to start me with some good suggestions, so this is a joint effort. We would probably base the flood elements around Grieg’s “Hall of the Mountain King” (the orchestral version but with some bits of Apocalyptica’s version interspersed). Those could then be mixed with the percussive parts of “A Dam in China” by Armand Amar for the building site and, for the lighter elements, “Bodhran” by The Young Dubliners.
What did you enjoy the most about writing this children’s picture book?
I most enjoyed seeing Ari’s reactions to it. When I wrote it, he was in a phase of being book averse, but he listened to the whole story on the afternoon I wrote the first draft and wanted it read to him again. It was a very positive thing to know that at least one two-year-old could follow and enjoy it. Now the book is out, and he is three, he has been insisting on it as bedtime reading.
What did you do to celebrate finishing this book?
The short answer is nothing. If I were writing a novel, I would want to celebrate getting it into the post, but with a picture book the sense of overwhelming achievement is not the same. And, in any case, as you can tell from my answer about process, it is hard to know when the book is actually finished.
What is the favourite book you have read so far this year and why?
That’s another hard question. I have been focused on catching up on books I ought to have read but have missed. Alexander McCall Smith’s ‘Scotland Street’ series and Jonas Jonasson’s “The Hundred Year-old Man who Jumped out the Window and Disappeared” were highlights, but I think my best read was Rosemary Sutcliff’s “The Silver Branch”. I have read and re-read many of Sutcliff’s books since the early 1970’s, but somehow I managed to miss “The Silver Branch”. So it was a joy to again experience the feeling of reading a new Sutcliff. I credit the underlying stoicism of Sutcliff’s Roman novels with getting me through my teens. I’ve always been a fan of her writing and can’t recommend it (or any of her other young adult novels) highly enough.
What’s next on the agenda for you?
As I write, I’m in the throes of getting an exhibition of the Digger illustrations ready for Whanganui’s Lockett Gallery. It will be wonderful to see them getting an airing in what is now my hometown. I’ll also start doing Read NZ Writers in Schools visits. Beyond that, in terms of the digger series, Fifi needs a bit of a break. We have done quite a few digger books in a relatively short period, so good for her to have a breather. If I do anything digger-related it will be something that can use existing elements. Otherwise, I have a range of interests that keep me busy. Over the next month, among other things, I will be following up on an article I wrote about critical thinking (https://grokk.ist/reimagine-education/critical-thinking-or-careful-thinking/), write an analysis of the engraved calligraphy of Paul Revere, and write a proposal for a book chapter on a blind spot in calligraphic history. I’m also trying to expand my calligraphy practice by learning how to do fully digital calligraphy, using Procreate and some custom brushes. Technically I have retired but, apart from reduced income, I’m not really noticing it….
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