Books / News
Bristol author paints shopfront to celebrate debut book
Outside Storysmith on North Street, a woman is crouching; intently focused on painting the red stripes of a little girl’s jumper. The girl, Ali, is the protagonist of artist and author Becky Colvin’s debut book that hit bookshelves in late July.
Ali is now painted on the bookshop’s window, riding the back of a stingray with fish of all colours of the rainbow in tow.
Becky’s book, The Great Green Island, revolves around residents of an island who are striving hard to solve the mystery of their missing fish, unaware that their small island actually hides a big secret.
Ali watches passersby from her new home on the Storysmith window
Becky studied at the University of the West of England and also won the Macmillan prize for illustration in 2023 for her dummy picture book, Shut Down, eventually leading to a two books deal.
Talking about her inspiration for the world of The Great Green Island, Becky told Bristol24/7: “It started from a holiday to Italy. I went to Lake Garda with one of my friends and there’s this jut of land that goes into the lake and nicknamed the Crocodile Peninsula.
“So I did this painting whilst I was there in the shape of the peninsula and I painted it as a crocodile, and when I was talking to my team in COVID they really liked this idea that it’s an island that’s a crocodile and then we came up with the story from that.”
Becky’s debut book, The Great Green Island, is available in Storysmith and other bookshops across the city
Becky says that she sees herself as an illustrator first, author second and that most of her ideas come from having fun with drawing.
Despite the enjoyment Becky gets from illustration, she also sees it as a useful medium to communicate difficult themes to children. Her picture book, Shut Down, is about a relationship between a father and son dealing with the death of the mother.
“People assume that children won’t be able to understand certain concepts or things will be too complicated for them,” she added.
“That doesn’t mean they’re not going to have to go through them themselves at some point in life. And I think that the power of visual communication and storytelling can help children understand those sorts of bigger topics.”
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As a child she recalls her favourite book being Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things are, and more recently, Sydney Smith, a Canadian Illustrator whose children’s books are “really beautifully illustrated but also help to translate more difficult themes”,
Painting Storysmith’s window is a special moment for Becky who lives just a stone’s throw from the bookshop on the North Street. She recalled the numerous times she had walked past these windows before she was an illustrator – a dream that was now reality.
Reeling in the success of her first book, Becky is now busy working on her second book.
All photos: Becky Colvin
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