Our First Children's Picture Book: Lola Saves the Show

It’s showtime! With Walker Books, we’ve created our first ever picture book that follows Lola, a little actor with big dreams, and her backstage adventures to save the show. Writer Katherine Halligan and illustrator Guilherme Karsten told us about where they find inspiration and share some of their working processes for Lola.

Please could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

Katherine: After a long and happy career in children’s book publishing, where much of my day job was spent writing books (well over 150!), I began writing as an author rather than as an editor. My first book was called Troubletops and the New Baby (Scholastic), about a little triceratops who was struggling with jealousy over a newborn sibling. Then, after having babies of my own and returning to work in publishing, I wrote the award-winning HerStory: 50 Women and Girls Who Changed the World, which has sold in 17 languages around the world… and counting! I’m now back in publishing once more, in a delightful job which allows me to write pretty much constantly, so I feel incredibly lucky. And after 20 years in London, I’ve returned to California, where I grew up: I get to do all of this whilst living by the Pacific Ocean with my lovely family, which makes me doubly lucky!

Guilherme: I was born and live with my wife and two boys in Blumenau, Brazil. I am an illustrator and writer of children’s books published in several countries. I spend my days reading, drawing and writing picture books, so, I would say that I can consider myself a lucky person. And, even living here in the sunny (and hot) Brazil, I loved the experience of visiting the cold and charming London, and I hope to come back soon!

What was your inspiration for the story, Lola Saves the Show?

Katherine: We all felt it was important for children to understand the inner workings of a theatre, and I wanted to do it in a way that didn’t completely demystify the magic, but rather added to it. So it was about building layers of humour and interest – and what better way to do that than by following a naughty little goat around the backstage world? My own children love both going to the theatre and performing in it, so it was important to balance what the audience sees with what the performers and crew experience. Lola’s mad dash around the theatre seemed like the perfect way to pull it all together.

How did you decide that Lola should be a goat?

Katherine: Lola herself was inspired by my discovery, when I was researching this project, that one of the animals to appear on stage at the National Theatre was a goat named Bruce, who appeared with Zoë Wanamaker in a production of Tennessee Williams’ The Rose Tattoo [Olivier, 2007]. So a goat seemed funny and original, while also honouring the NT’s wonderful history. Goats have such innate comic potential, and such personality, so Lola came to me almost instantly – and once I’d seen her, I couldn’t imagine her as anything else. She popped into my head fully formed as a character, and quickly took on a life of her own… I simply followed her as she capered around backstage!

What is your process for creating characters? Did you instantly have an idea of what Lola would look like when you read the story?

Guilherme: I usually work directly on the computer, and when I’m creating a character, it’s a lot of trial and error until I get the ideal style. But the image of what I want to illustrate is already forming in my mind while I read the story. Sometimes the result doesn’t turn out the way I imagined, so I have to go back to the roughs stage to rethink the scene, but it’s part of the process. I redo it until I get the image I like.

What is your favourite part in the book?

Katherine: It’s all my favourite! I love the opening spread where we are in the audience, waiting for the show to start. That delicious anticipation means all the more after all the theatre closures of the last few years – going to the theatre has become even more of a joy and a privilege now than ever, and the first pages of the book capture that feeling perfectly. Guilherme Karsten did the most wonderful job of bringing Lola to life – it’s like Lola pranced right out of my imagination and into his!

But the very best bits are when Lola herself appears: when she emerges so proudly from her dressing room, when she gets caught nibbling on a dress, and when she trots onto stage to shine in the spotlight. Lola doesn’t just save the show, she truly steals it!

Guilherme: This is a very difficult question as I enjoyed the whole book. But if I had to choose any part, I would say the scene where Lola is biting the red dress. Interestingly it was the first spread I illustrated. This scene is hilarious, Lola is always naively distracted by other things and needs to constantly remind herself of her mission.

What is your favourite thing about the National Theatre? (or theatre generally)

Katherine: I’m a huge theatre fan, and I’ve had the immense privilege of seeing many plays at the National Theatre, but the very best moment was seeing Anne-Marie Duff many years ago as Joan of Arc [in Saint Joan, Olivier, 2007] (who, incidentally, appears in HerStory) – she was heartbreaking and luminous and I will never forget her performance.

I’ve raised my children to be avid theatre-goers, too, and they’ve attended a wide range of productions in both the UK and US since they were tiny, so I was inspired both by our experience as keen members of the audience as well as their many theatre performances as dancers and actors. Their passion for performing gave me a special insight – as a volunteer crew member – into the backstage world, from which all the on-stage magic grows. Having worked my whole career ‘backstage’ in publishing, I hope that this book can become a way to honour all the behind-the-scenes magicians who bring stories to life, whether on stage or on the page.