Claire Mabey
Jill Calder
Cass and the Beast
Cass and the Beast is a sweeping and original picture book about a girl who chooses not to be afraid, a modern-day heroine in a story we feel in our bones like an ancient folktale. It is written by Claire Mabey, a New Zealand children’s writer with a background in publishing and multi-arts festivals, and Jill Calder, an award-winning Scottish illustrator.
Jill: Claire, you’ve been writing for older children for a while, and I wondered what inspired you to write your first picture book story?
Claire: I have always hugely admired picture books and have fallen in love with many of them. I didn’t think I’d be able to write one to be honest! But last summer I had this wild flurry of creative energy and sat down and wrote six or seven manuscripts and I loved them all. What changed for me was how I thought about them: like tiny novels. I moved away from being afraid of the space on the page and being inspired by it. It was also just so refreshing to encapsulate a story in so few words but for it to still feel so rich and vast. Picture books are miracles!
Jill: What or who was the inspiration for Cass?
Claire: This story came very quickly from somewhere deep in my
subconscious. I can now see that my books tend to have a theme . . .
children hear one thing from adults and decide that rather than taking it at
face value they’d prefer to find out for themselves. Cass is quiet but she’s
extraordinarily brave. I dedicated the story to my Aunty Margaret who I
never met—she died of cancer when she was only nine years old and the
stories about her always included how brave she was and how charming.
I think I’ve carried the image of a quiet, charming, brave child all my life
because of those stories about my aunty.
Claire: What appealed to you about the story of Cass?
Jill: It was the wildness of your story that immediately appealed to
me on the very first read. I’ve always loved stories that include night
scenes and this is an overnight adventure where Cass stepped out,
alone, bravely into the night and I just wanted to draw all of it!
Claire: Jill, I just love your aesthetic—I love that
your style shows the hand of the artist, which
has a wildness to it. Is this how you’ve always
made art?
Jill: I’m an old hand in the illustration world (33+ years!) and when I started out all those years ago, computer/digital art was in its very infancy. So I made art with pens and ink and paper and kept sketchbooks, drawing from life. Eventually I got a Mac and started to blend my analogue work with digital drawing techniques, but ink and mark-making is my first love, and I draw in a very loose way so I think the wildness lies in that.
Jill: What was the difference between your expectation and your experience of working with an illustrator and seeing your writing being
illustrated for the first time?
Claire: I didn’t really know what to expect but what I had heard from friends in the publishing industry was that very often authors and illustrators have very little to do with each other. So I was delighted when we got to meet and chat and talk through your (brilliant) ideas! The whole process has been an absolute dream. When I first saw your sketches, I bawled my eyes out. They were so alive! I think what you do is utterly magical and I’m just so grateful that Cass and the Beast is yours, too.
Claire: Can you tell us a little about your process of discovering the look and feel of the characters? I was lucky to see quite a few iterations of the beast,
and it was so thrilling to watch it evolve!
Jill: Cass came to me pretty quickly to be honest! I was inspired by the farm kids I see around where I live, who shove on practical, warm but sometimes a bit quirky clothing to muck about in—hence Cass’ bright orange jacket! I also wanted her to look a little bit Celtic in her colouring (dark hair and deep blue eyes) because I felt that worked with the folklorish feel to the story. Beast was great to develop and was actually inspired by one of my dogs, a great big rumbling labrador called Sidney, who sadly passed away in 2024 at age 14. I think subconsciously I wanted to pay tribute to him in my drawings of Beast—a huge thing full of spirit with beautiful fur, a wet nose, and questionable breath!
With those notions in mind, I start by drawing my ideas very freely on big sheets of paper. By doing that, I’ll develop and tune the characters, sifting out anything that isn’t working. I showed those initial drawings to the designer, Vida Kelly, and Rachel at Gecko Press, who gave me useful feedback for developing them a bit further. Often at this stage I change tack completely by working on a very small scale, thumbnail size, so I can start thinking about the layout and composition of a spread and how those characters might work within it.
Jill: What is your favourite illustration from Cass and the Beast?
Claire: I adore the spread where Cass is sleeping in the shadow of the beast. To me that image is one of total peace and total trust and total adventure and danger all at the same time. I love her winky face, I love the grass, and I love the colours. But I can’t pick just one illustration! I also adore the spread where Cass is in her sweet kitchen and looking out of the window in the moonlight. It gives me shivers. I wish I could climb through the page and join her.
Claire: What was the trickiest illustration in Cass? And your own favourite?
Jill: I spent a loooong time getting two particular spreads just right. Ironically they had both come to me so easily during the thumbnail and roughs stage too! The first was “Run, said Cass” which is all about speed, thrilling adventure, and going into the unknown but very little is actually shown apart from a lot of fur and Cass holding on for dear life. For me it was getting her facial expression and body position just right and really focusing in on the beast’s luxurious fur too. I wasn’t happy . . . until I was finally happy! The second-to-last spread was a bit tricky too. It’s a kitchen scene again, mirroring an earlier spread in the book but the light and time of day have changed and Cass has too after her experience with Beast. It had to be the same familiar kitchen and yet be changed in different subtle ways to reflect what had happened to Cass and it took a few goes to get that mood just right!
My favourite illustration in the book changes all the time but I am particularly pleased with the spread where the “world flashes by”. I had fun with that one, introducing a bit of moonlit magical realism, whilst experimenting with how NOT to reveal the beast in detail yet seeing both Beast and Cass in full. Also, I’ve included a visual nod to the powerful wolf scene in Wes Anderson’s film Fantastic Mr Fox, which references the untamed nature of wild animals.
Jill: A bigger perspective question now: what are your thoughts on getting parents and children into books and more importantly reading for pleasure?
Claire: I have been thinking a lot about this and I have come to a few solid thoughts. One is that with the constant pressure and sneak-allure of phones and screens we should all book reading time in. It is so hard to transfer a mind from screen to page, I think, but once that jump is made and you’re inside a book you’re there and your brain thanks you for it. I also think that we need multiple kinds of reading time: solo, silent reading; but also lots and lots of communal reading. I think parents need to read to their kids as long as the kids can cope with the grating sound of our voice (hopefully at least into the teens! Ha!) and I think kids need to read to adults. There is so much fun to be had reading to each other, talking about the books and the questions they raise. It’s an intimate and deeply enriching interaction that doesn’t cost a cent.
I also think we can’t try too hard to curate what our kids read. If they’re into books that you don’t really like then so be it—there’s nothing worse than being told what your tastes ought to be by a grown-up. There’s room for everything! I tend to read to my child the books that I love and he reads the books that he loves. That way there’s a mix and we’re exploring each other’s interests.
Also, school libraries and school librarians should be mandatory at every single school!
Claire: Do you have favourite illustrators, (or favourite picture books,) who inspire you?
Jill: Yes! It’s an ever-changing list of people from across the ages—not only illustrators but all kinds of artists and makers. My studio shelves are literally overflowing with the picture books I collect and I particularly love picture books from other countries. I’ve found beautiful picturebooks from Sri Lanka (Sybil Wettasinghe’s work in particular), Turkey, Spain, and Lithuania. I love seeing the different artwork and storytelling styles from other cultures around the world. Closer to home, I enjoy the work of Charles Keeping and Brian Wildsmith, Spanish designer Javier Mariscal, Shirley Hughes, the Scottish painter Joan Eardley and my contemporary Yuko Shimizu in the USA is an amazing illustrator and visual storyteller (not the Hello Kitty artist btw!)
