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December 2007
Kate de Goldi talks to Kim Hill about Gecko Press
on Radio New Zealand, National
Kate: ... for me the stars [in 2007] in New Zealand publishing were, ironically, the books from Gecko Press.
Kim: Yeah, and I know that time and again you’ve brought Gecko Press books to our attention. They’re fantastic productions. There hasn’t been a dud amongst them.
Kate: No – and you know, hats off to Julia Marshall – she’s done an amazing thing. Yes they are stories to my particular taste, but what she’s done fundamentally is get the stars of European children’s literature and publish them in English and so they’re very very good. The ones I loved especially from Gecko Press this year were I am so Handsome and I am so Strong by Mario Ramos. Remember them? - the ones about the wolf - which are just so, so funny...
Kim: Yes, yes, I am so Strong, very funny.
Kate: … and I recommended them to so many people. And just a very amusing take on the wolf of fairy tale.
Kim: How clever it is. It’s like… how do you make that so funny, just the sheer look of this wolf makes you laugh.
Kate: Yeah, it’s a beautiful kind of amalgam of illustration and text. The text is very funny, and there’s the patterning that comes in all the best children’s stories. The wolf is, you know, full of hubris and is asking all the characters from fairy tale and in the forest, red riding hood, the pigs etc. "who is the strongest?", "who is the most handsome?" and they, in their slightly nervous way are saying, "you are", "you are", "you are"… and then comes the little dinosaur who says "my mum is" and then he accuses the dinosaur of being a "miserable little gherkin" which I just love (laughs) – so there’s great language, it’s very funny.
Kim: One of the things I like about these Gecko Press translations is that you get words that you would not normally get in books that were aimed at this age group, for example the last sentence in I am so Strong, by Mario Ramos says, "who me? I’m just a harmless little wolf, said the wolf, backing prrrudently away" – and prudently is just such a fantastic word, but you’d never find it in your average picture book would you?
Kate: No you wouldn’t, because, so many picture books… well there are two things going on… number one, I think there is a terrible tendency now for people who are writing for children to write for a putative audience so they’re thinking all the time is this age appropriate? There’s a notion of age appropriateness just dominating the way people write and the way people publish.
Kim: So this breaks through that kind of barrier.
Kate: It does, and this is a very European approach – a book, is a book, is a book - and it floats free of age stratifications and that is not something that happens in the same way in Anglo-Saxon or western publishing, I don’t think, in publishing in English. A lot of picture books are publisher and editorial driven. That’s particularly the case in Australia. Editors have as much a part to play in the creation of a picture book where they’re bringing together the artist and the writer, who often don’t meet each other, and it’s sort of mediated by the publisher and they inevitably have an eye on the bottom line and the so-called audience appropriateness and I think a lot of those great European writers and illustrators don’t march to that particular drum-beat. Obviously it’s going on in publishing, and you see it in adolescent fiction, also called young adult fiction in European publishing as well. It often comes out without that particular label and is read… it floats free again. It is read be adults, it might be read by …and that’s happening a bit more, that sort of crossover thing in antipodean publishing and it’s definitely happening a lot more in Australia. Text are doing that much more, they’re not noticeably aiming so-called YAF books at adolescents alone.
...
Kate: ... I haven’t been incredibly struck by any of the picture books that have come out this year except for the ones by Gecko Press. I thought Guji-Guji was a beautiful piece of design, remember the one about the duck? It’s hardcover, I mean the economics of hardcover are tricky but what Gecko have tended to do is publish hardcover and paperback at the same time so you know, you have the gift book, and then you have the book that you know, can be read and read.
Kim: Charming – look at the crocodiles.
Kate: But look at the paper stock Kim – and this isn’t just superficial aesthetics - it’s a beautiful book.
Kim: I know – beautiful. Yep. I really love those crocodiles, I really love them.
Kate: And that book has everything. That’s what makes a good book.
Kim: I mean a baby crocodile adopted by the ducks!
Kate: It’s beautifully designed and it’s beautifully packaged, it has a beautiful harmony of text and illustration.
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