In my continued quest to read more MG, I've devoured all three Sesame Seade novels over the past month or so, so was thrilled to get the chance to talk to Clementine Beauvais, the author AND Sarah Horne, the illustrator!
Check out my reviews of
Sleuth on Skates,
Gargoyles Gone AWOL and
Scam on the Cam, and if you're in the UK or Ireland, after the interview, enter my #SesameSolves giveaway on Twitter to win a set of all three books! Huge thanks to Hodder Children's Books for their generosity.
Clementine Beauvais
- 1. When you close your eyes and imagine your readers, who do you see?
Clementine Beauvais: The jury of the Nobel Prize, of course, but also
a flock of primary school children running around the playground in
search for interstices of freedom in the adult-imposed routine.
- 2. When you first created the character of Sesame, did you
have a mental image of her? If so, how close is that to Sarah’s drawings
of her?
CB: Bizarrely, I don’t tend to picture my characters very much in my
head, unlike fictional places, which are very clear to me. I don’t
generally think of my characters as blonde or brown-haired, as white or
black. As a result, I don’t often describe my characters – Sesame’s
never described in the books. I had a long conversation with my editor
about what Sesame looked like – she needed to tell Sarah! But I honestly
had no clue. We made it up on the phone!
Then, when I saw Sarah’s first sketch of Sesame, I immediately
thought – “That’s it! That’s Sesame!”. I ‘recognised’ her, even though
I’d never seen her.
- 3. Some of the villains in Sesame Seade are rather nasty pieces of work. Who’s your all-time favourite fictional baddie?
CB: Maybe the velociraptors in Jurassic Park. Or Mrs Coulter in
Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. Or Norman Bates of Psycho…
actually, they’re all pretty much the same character, aren’t they?
Sesame’s villains aren’t as murderous. But her mum can certainly be as
scary as a velociraptor sometimes.
- 4. You use some really complicated vocabulary and
references, including Gorgias, Thomas Aikenhead, and incarnadine in your
first two Sesame Seade books. Are you expecting children to understand
them or look them up, or are they a nod to your adult readers?
CB: To be honest, they’re more of a game with myself: an added
challenge. “How many references to obscure things can I put in there
without them being taken out?” Most often I don’t expect anyone to spot
them – they’re just there for me to have fun while I write the book. A
few of them get taken out at editing stage.
But I was flabbergasted that my editor let me keep the sentence
‘and the multitudinous seas incarnadine’ (I think that’s the sign of a
good editor!). Maybe one kid will remember the line in a few years’
time, when rediscovering it in a Shakespeare class…
- 5. How long can we expect to be following Sesame's
adventures for? Any chance of her lasting to the point where she becomes
a Cambridge student herself? (Crossing my fingers here!)
CB: For now, there’s only three books, though maybe if readers send
enough boxes of sesame snaps to Hodder… But I don’t think she can ever
grow up. She’s too cool for adulthood. And Jeremy Hopkins provides the
perfect portrayal of the typical Cambridge student. As we speak, he’s
probably got an essay to write, due last month.
- 6. What's next for Clementine Beauvais?
CB: I have a series for younger readers coming out with Bloomsbury in
September. The first one is called The Royal Babysitters, and sees
Holly and Anna Burningbright, helped by Prince Pepino, trying to babysit
the royal sextuplets of the King and Queen of Britland while repelling
an invasion by King Alaspooryorick of Daneland. Needless to say, he’s
come with hummingbird cannons and an army of robotic mermaids. It’s
completely different from Sesame, but still (hopefully!) funny and
adventurous.
Sarah Horne
- 1. How much guidance do you get from either the author or publishers when you're illustrating a book?
Sarah Horne: Sometimes lots of guidance, sometimes none at all
depending on the project. Usually there’s a lot of discussion between
the publisher and myself once we get started on a book. I am often given
a character description of how the author sees their characters, then I
spend some time reading the text and getting a feel for the characters
and scenarios, and we go from there.
- 2. There have been some brilliant adventures for Sesame in
the first two books (and more to come, I’m sure, in the third.) What’s
been your favourite picture to draw?
SH: The Sesame Seade books have been a massive joy to illustrate. I
think one of my favourites to draw was Sesame’s bedroom door sign from
Gargoyles Gone A.W.O.L. - Very witty stuff. I had to do this one in a
couple of sittings for fear of going seriously cross-eyed.
- 3. Has there been any scene in the Sesame Seade series so
far which has left you thinking "How on earth am I going to draw that?”
SH: At one point, I think it was at a rate of about 1 in 5 illos,
where I wondered how on earth I was going to draw that thing! A notable
one was 'Sesame Film Noir' from Sleuth on Skates. Quite a bit of
research went into that particular piece.
- 4. When growing up did you always want to be an illustrator? Who were your favourite illustrators as a child?
SH: Yes, I was fairly clear on what I wanted to do. I always loved
to draw for stories, but I didn’t know it was called illustration. My
dream job was either to be a dustbin lady or to sit in an office all day
and draw and draw and draw.
I loved Richard Scarry's books and the amazing detail in his
work. I also loved books by Judith Kerr, Babbette Cole and Raymond
Briggs. One of my absolute favourites was Don’t Forget The Bacon by Pat
Hutchins.
- 5. What's next for Sarah Horne?
SH: I’m nicely busy at the moment- currently working on a very fun
novelty/picture book with Hodder, some non-fiction work with Egmont, and
a scattering of smaller fiction projects which involve some nice inky
black and white work.
Sounds fab! Thanks for talking to me, both.
Now, do you want to read these awesome books? You should do! And I have a set to give away to a lucky winner in the UK/Ireland.
To enter, just head to Twitter and tell me which mystery, fictional or real-life, you'd most like to see Sesame solve! Tweet using the hashtag
#SesameSolves and I'll pick a winner on Thursday 17th April. Closing date to enter is 11:59pm BST Wednesday 16th April.
UK and Ireland only, 13 or over, please. If you win, I'll get in touch with you and ask you for your address to pass on to publishers, then delete it once you've received your books.
Thanks to
Stacey and
Debbie for advice given on the giveaway, by the way.
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