03 Magazine: October 02, 2023

Arts | Magazine 69
Sid, the cocky, talking cockatoo from Dunedin Botanic
Garden, has a new fan – writer Ruth Paul.
“He became a good friend,” Ruth, this year’s University
of Otago College of Education Creative New Zealand
Children’s Writer in Residence Fellow, says.
The gardens, and a visit to see Sid, became a regular
activity for Ruth, who made the most of getting to know
Dunedin and its wildlife for the first time during the
fellowship when she was based at the Robert Lord cottage.
An award-winning children’s picture book author and
illustrator of 30 titles, Ruth admits Sid might even be
immortalised in a future book.
“Living in Dunedin is a bit like living in a picture book,
full stop.
“The experiences I’ve had will slowly filter through … it’ll
suddenly coalesce and the subconscious stuff will pop out,
but I can never quite tell when that’ll be.
“Sometimes it’s serendipity, sometimes you have to sit
down and squeeze out some ideas.”
Animals have always featured heavily in Ruth’s books –
lions, dogs, frogs and even jellyfish – I Am Jellyfish won picture
book of the year at the New Zealand Post Book Awards in
2018 – and dolphins.
“I love animals and kids love them. They are a stand-in for
a lot of human emotions, but you don’t have the issues of
race and ability and age. There are all sorts of things you can
do with animals that you can’t do depicting humans.”
Many come with known qualities, such as the brave lion or
shy mouse, so they are the perfect vessels for storytelling.
“I seem to use them more by accident than design.”
Ruth, who lives on a small farm in the Wellington region,
illustrates as well as writes the books, although she started
off as an illustrator after doing an arts degree at Victoria
University and a diploma of visual communication design at
what is now Massey University in Wellington.
It was not until she had children that Ruth began to write
as well as illustrate books, something that worked well
around raising children.
She studied English at Victoria University and art at Massey,
so putting the two sets of skills together “works really well”.
“I wouldn’t have had the confidence to do it.”
However, she discovered doing both gave her greater
control of the story and enabled her to change either aspect
part way through a project if something was not working,
something she was loath to do with another writer.
“I can adjust things to fit, so the drawings and story are
more locked in step.”
There is also the practical side – doing both the writing and
illustrating meant all of the royalties went to her, not half.
“If you can double up it can make a financially unrewarding
career less financially unrewarding.”
Surprisingly, she discovered that, for her, writing was
actually easier than illustrating a children’s book,
Her first book as author and illustrator was The Animal
Undie Ball, and she has gone on to write many more.
Many have been translated into a variety of languages
and published in Australia, the United States, the United
Kingdom, China and Korea.
“Living in Dunedin is a bit like living
in a picture book, full stop.”
Some, such as The Animal Undie Ball, have been produced
as stage performances and others – Superpotamus and Two
Little Pirates – have featured on an Australian preschool
television series. Bad Dog Flash was published as an e-book
in the US.
As a new mum 20 years ago, she was reading more
picture books but did not share her own work with her
children as they had watched her making them.
“At the end of it they were completely over it.
“When they have children they might read them and go
‘Oh, is that what mum did’.”
These days she still reads picture books, but admits it is
not the same unless she borrows a great-niece or nephew
to read to.
“Now I just read that stuff myself anyway, but it’s not
quite the same as reading as an interaction.”
Ruth came to Dunedin for the fellowship with plans to
finish three picture book stories – The Farmer’s Pyjamas, You
Can’t Pat a Fish and Candy Rapper and the Flash Trash Crew –
and, if she had time, work on a mid-grade novel.
“Picture books are my stock and trade and generally I
don’t have that many words.
“It seemed a good place to attempt something you might
fail at, as you have the space and the time, which is usually
unheard of creatively, as you are trying to pay the bills.”
Not only did she have time, she wrote 25,000 words
for the novel she describes as “magical realism based in the
natural world”, thanks to the luxury of not having the usual
requirements of everyday life intrude.
“But I don’t know if any of its good or not. That is
something you work on next. I don’t know what its value is
yet.”
It didn’t come easy, as picture book writing requires being
economical with words and simple with storylines.
“Writing a novel is as complicated as putting both
forms together.
“A picture book is concise, you have to work within about
500 words, but the complexity of a larger novel with plot
twists and different settings is a lot to get your head around
and you have to keep tabs on everyone.”
For the first time she discovered why other writers use
spreadsheets.
“It’s been a good opportunity to learn.”
She also enjoyed having an office at the College of
Education and the opportunity to talk with educators about
children’s books.
“They understood children making the link between
images and words when learning to read, and how children
read the pictures while adults are reading the words. They
are learning to scan the page looking for symbols and clues.”