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
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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.
I love the sound of this story. It’s really interesting having some insight into how the illustrations were created too. #MMBC
I always find it fascinating to hear about an author or illustrator’s work process 🙂
What a great sounding book and it’s so interesting to read about how the illustrations were created x
It’s a great story – I always love to see how illustrators’ artwork is created 🙂
That sounds like a great story and I love reading about how it all came together and how the illustrations were all created. #MMBC
It’s always interesting to read the story behind the story 🙂
This books looks fab and the illustrations are amazing! #mmbc
I really love the bold colours that Charlotte uses for her illustrations 🙂
Illustrating an enchanting story would be a dream for me if I had the talent. #MMBC
I know, I would love to be able to draw better than I can 🙂
What a lovely book and such fun illustrations! 🙂
It’s a really fun story – Finney’s quite a character 🙂
Aww this sounds like a fab book! Love the step by step instructions!
I did try drawing Ginger for the blogpost but my cat didn’t look good at all!