David Barrow has an MA from the Cambridge School of Art, where he now teaches. His first book, Have You Seen Elephant?, was shortlisted for the Waterstones Prize, longlisted for the Klaus Flugge Prize, and received a Dutch Silver Pencil award. It has also been translated into 11 languages. Barrow won the Sebastian Walker Award and has since written and illustrated many picture books and illustrated a children’s novel.
In A Lot of Silly, Barrow brings his mastery of the absurd to a book of rhymes and nonsense by world-renowned Joy Cowley. We asked David some questions about working on this book and he replied in illustrations.
Who was your favourite nonsense writer growing up?
Which is your favourite poem or illustration in A Lot of Silly?
You drew many of the characters as animals – is that how they spontaneously seemed to you or is there a process?
In this book of absurd poems and very short, silly stories, a man takes his tadpoles for a walk in his hat, a cat is surprised by its talking feet, a tiger gobbles up a dentist, ten baggy clowns do a do-wacky dance … along with many more preposterous flights of imagination. Each fantastical suggestion is playfully expanded in the illustrations of David Barrow.
Cowley channels the spirit of classic silly humorists Spike Milligan, Edward Lear and Ogden Nash in this exuberant collection for the family that emboldens us to experiment with language and play.
