Finney’s Story was written for a competition to write a story about Finney the Fox, UCLan Publishing’s mascot. We’re excited to be part of the Finney’s Story blog tour which takes place every day this week.
Finney’s Story is written by Alana Washington and illustrated by Charlotte Caswell who has joined us today to tell us more about how she illustrated the book.
The Story: Finney Fox has decided to write a book about foxes but Ginger Cat thinks he should write for a broader readership. Finney shares lots of different ideas but none of them are original and a visit to the library doesn’t help either. But then Finney realises that there’s a story that’s never been told before…
Finney’s Story is told completely in dialogue and the humour that evolves as the two characters chat makes us laugh. It’s funny listening to Finney sharing his thought process as he thinks about what to write and we laughed at some of the not so original ideas he comes up with – he describes a lot of fairytales with foxes as main characters! Finney’s word use as he starts writing his final idea gives a great insight into the egocentricity of his character and we love Ginger Cat’s reaction to what Finney writes!
The illustrations in Finney’s Story are bold and bright and we love the way that the dialogue and pictures are combined on each page. It’s really interesting to hear from Charlotte how she developed the characters of Finney and Ginger and the way that the book developed.
We love the cover that won – it really captures the essence of Finney’s Story!
Thank you so much for this really interesting look at how you work, Charlotte and congratulations on the publication of Finney’s Story.
About Charlotte Caswell
Charlotte lives in Blackpool. She graduated from UCLan with a bachelor’s degree in Drawing & Image Making in 2013 and a master’s degree in Children’s Book Illustration in 2014. Since then, she has worked as a designer and illustrator for a wide range of branding, packaging and illustration projects (including UCLan Publishing’s logo), both in-house and as a freelancer.
Charlotte’s website / Twitter / Facebook / Instagram
You can read more about Finney, Alana and Charlotte on the other blog tour stops:
- March 8th: The Teacher Bookworm
- March 9th: My Shelves Are Full
- March 10th: Father Reading
- March 12th: Books With Baby
- March 13th: Childtastic Books
- March 14th: Picture Book Perfect
Thank you to Antonia Wilkinson for sending us a review copy of Finney’s Story.
Leave a Reply