‘Luna and the Moon Rabbit’, started out as a silent picture book project during my MA in Children’s Book Illustration course as Cambridge School of Art. I wanted to create a book that I would’ve liked to have read as a child. Seeing as I wasn’t much of a reader back then, but absolutely loved illustrations and visual art, it seemed apt to make it wordless.
One of the things I recall from the Master’s course was that it wasn’t always necessary to map out a whole book in its entirety at the start. We could start forming a story from a single illustration idea. As I love rabbits, the first character was naturally the huge rabbit.
I followed this up with creating a human character not unlike a child version of myself - I think a lot of illustrators tend to draw themselves into their characters! I then sketched what they might do together eg. catching fireflies, running through woods etc.
I imagined the rabbit as being mischievous mythical. I had heard of the mythological moon rabbit/hare in East Asian folklore and made the Japanese version, who pounds rice in his mortar, the basis of the story. I also talked with my mother about Japanese moon viewing and harvest festival traditions and tales. From there the story began taking shape.
I included Luna’s grandmother into the story, not directly based on my own Japanese grandmother but as a kind of homage to her. I only got to visit my grandmother a few times and communication was often difficult, my Japanese being somewhat limited and her English being non-existent, but she was kind and generous and I wish I could have known her better.
Once the narrative was set and a dummy book created, it was shown at my graduation shows and on the Cambridge School of Art stand at Bologna Children’s Book Fair. However, after little success in gaining interest from publishers, I realised it needed text. I am first and foremost an illustrator so adding text was a challenge and one that I put off until a recommendation from a friend to enter the inaugural Stratford Salariya Picture Book Prize.
To enter the competition, text was a must. Had I not worked hard on the readability and flow of the images to tell the story, the text may have been even more challenging. I managed to get it written and sent off with less than an hour left till the deadline. I’m so pleased I did, of course!
Shortly after Luna and the Moon Rabbit was published, the CLPE research into representations of people of colour reported only 1% of main characters in British children’s books were from BAME backgrounds. Although I never set out to redress any imbalances in representation, it was natural to include someone like myself (mixed race) as the main character. I’d say it shows how vital it is for diversity of children’s book creators themselves, not just the characters on the page.
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