Hello, it’s Emma Chinnery here writing a blog about my debut children’s picture book My Friend Andy. I would like to start by saying thank you to all the children who kindly voted for my book as its very special to me that you enjoyed reading it. I hope you find this blog interesting and helpful for budding authors and illustrators out there!
The idea for My Friend Andy came while I was living in London and studying on the MA Children’s Book Illustration course at the Cambridge School of Art. It is heavily inspired by the observational drawing I was doing in my sketchbook at the time. When you sit sketching, you act as a stationary observer on the world and notice things you might normally miss. The idea for this story started with a quick sketch I did on my lunch break of a tiny tent in the park with London terraces standing tall behind it.
During my half an hour walk to work I would sadly pass many people suffering
homelessness. I passed one man everyday who was playing a guitar with his dog by his side. I noticed how happy they looked together. This gave me the idea for the characters. Another man was sleeping rough in an underpass under a bridge, this gave me the idea for the setting for the story. I noticed how young children were on the same eye level as a person sitting on the floor and how they would look openly and with questioning eyes at a person suffering homelessness while their adult would often look away. I noticed how there were many dog walkers and how their dogs would meet and instantly play together like small children do.
This observational drawing also helped me to develop the loose, sketchy look to the
illustrations in the book as I tried to bring into the final artwork the quick pencil and
watercolour drawings in my sketchbooks.
The story was difficult to write as this is such a sensitive topic for a children’s picture book. I wanted to avoid it being preachy or have a direct message but to be more about the friendship between the characters.
To plan out the book I make tiny books called dummy books (small bits of paper stapled together) and it took many, many versions of making these small books before I felt happy with the story. Through this process I realised that the text and images should say different things. Read alone, Fluffy’s narration tells a story of friendship with Andy, being lost in the city and finding her way home. It is only through the images that we see that Fluffy and Andy are dogs, that Andy is suffering homelessness with his human owner and that they sleep in an underpass. This gap where the text and image say different things allows you the reader to insert their own thoughts, ideas and questions rather than me as the author telling the reader what to think.
Thank you for reading, I look forward to seeing the winners later on this year.
Emma x
FCBG Children’s Book Awards
Children across the UK are encouraged to get involved. Copies of the books can be purchased at a discount from our partner supplier Heath Books here; https://www.heathbooks.co.uk/federation-of-childrens-book-groups-childrens-book-award-2025/ and online voting will be opened at the conclusion of the blog tour. The deadline for voting is Friday 9th May and category winners and the overall winner of the most popular children’s book published in 2024 will be announced at a ceremony in Birmingham on 7th June, attended by representatives from all our local groups and livestreamed on the FCBG YouTube channel.
Scope for Imagination 