The Story of WingedChariot

  by Neal Hoskins

As a small publisher starting out, I suppose more than anything your choice of books really comes down to gut feeling. There I was in Amsterdam in 2004 with a free day before a talk I was going to give to the Dutch Reading Association, and as often happens, my meandering led me to a bookshop where I picked up a little book called Drop – which means literally something like, but much more than, our home-grown Liquorice Allsorts. Unknown to me then, Drop was to become the book that a year later started our list of European picture books.

With the added assistance of a grant from Arts Council England, we set about publishing four books, two from the Netherlands and two from Portugal. In addition to these titles, we also wanted to do something extra. We knew that librarians and teachers, as well as parents, would enjoy these books so together with our editor, Ann Arscott, we started work on introductory booklets for the titles and recorded the stories in the original languages. We loved the sound of these different languages and thought the books would be a good way in which to introduce the idea of Europe and other cross-cultural discussions, especially with the internet now as an additional means of delivery.

The greatest challenge for these books will be to find their feet in the British picture book market. I do not know what it is about European books that make them slightly different – perhaps they are somehow more open, more extreme or louder than the English ones; perhaps in the end they take a more philosophical viewpoint on life. The mass market for picture books is often the funny endearing bedtime stories that everyone loves reading with kids. But the books we want to publish, and which in turn help us stand out, can be enjoyed by all ages. We know the time is right for an injection of new talent and new stories with different perspectives on life around us.

We have carefully crafted our books – stitching and varnishing the covers – and have worked on every one as an individual project. On our poetry title we approached a well-known poet to work on an English version as we felt we wanted to keep the rhymes. It was a risk and hard to do taking more time than planned but we think it has worked superbly. Our view on translation is that we are always trying to find the right voice for the books even if there are only 50 words inside, and we are happy to work with translators and established writers where necessary to write the best English version of the story. Some of our inspiration came from the layout of Brian Wildsmith’s illustrations of Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verse done in the 60s, simplifying the covers leaving just the title and pictures.

The reaction to previews of the books from the public and the trade has been wonderful. We know we have to be realistic and in order for the imprint to survive, our books must stand out and stand up for themselves in a competitive market - something different, something magnificent for people to enjoy. Our first four titles are contained in this guide. We plan to publish another six books from Germany, France and Finland, the latter being something of a publishing first as was the case with our Portuguese titles.

The great Max Velthuijs, author of the wonderful Frog books, once said he only became an illustrator for children’s books because no other publisher wanted them in their adult list of titles – who knows what other ventures and new possibilities lie ahead for us in the more distant future . . .

© Outside In: Children’s Books in Translation, Milet Publishing, 2005

Neal Hoskins founded WingedChariot Press in 2004. Previously he worked in educational publishing at Oxford University Press. He now sees picture books as a perfect conduit for European co-operation, understanding and enjoyment.