Everyone has a favourite book from childhood, one they return to again and again, which evokes so many memories from all those years ago. A book that you hope one day you will share with your children because it means so much you can’t help but want those you love to love it too.
You don’t ever expect though to get any closer to the book than by reading it. You certainly don’t imagine that one day you may meet the actual person who wrote the book, or the person who drew the pictures inside . . .
My favourite childhood book is The BFG, and whilst sadly I’ll never get to meet Roald Dahl, I am lucky enough to be the Copywriter here at Puffin and to work on his books on a weekly basis. And last week I was lucky enough to meet Quentin Blake, Roald Dahl’s legendary illustrator. But not only did I meet Quentin, I saw him drawing The BFG and Sophie in front of my very own eyes. Mine and 2000 others at the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank, along with 185,000 others who were watching Quentin Blake Virtually Live all around the big wide world, from Thailand to Argentina to Brazil to Ecuador. You can see it here too.
I’m not embarrassed to admit it brought a tear to my eye, it gave me goose bumps; it was magical. It’s taken me this long to write this blog because I couldn’t really put into words how wonderful it was. I hope I’ve managed to express it here, but in fact, for all those of us who love Roald Dahl, whose stories were a huge part of our childhoods and who still love his books today, I hope these pictures I managed to snap speak a thousand gloriumptious, woopsey-splunking, splendiferously whoppsy-whiffling words.
Sarah Topping
Creative Executive
Puffin Books
Comments