I remember Michael sitting in Sherwood Forest, making notes while I sketched trees – the kind of trees I liked climbing as a boy, the kind of trees I thought the Outlaws would climb and ambush the Sheriff of Nottingham. The ‘other Michael’ looked up.


“This is fun,” he said. “What shall we do next?” “Well,” I said, “I’ve always wanted to do a book about football.”


“Later, maybe,” the ‘other one’ said. “We’ve done King Arthur. Now we’re doing Robin Hood. I think we should do a girl next – what about Joan of Arc?” So, it was off to France for local colour and local wine.


After Joan, I got my way and we did the football book – Billy the Kid. In the ‘other Michael’s’ hands it became much more than a football book.


Going to the actual locations, the real landscape of the stories is important to both of us.


I have been fortunate to have had opportunities to travel and draw in many parts of the world, researching books and stumbling upon locations and characters which inspire future stories. From my first day at Saturday morning Art School (aged 12) observing and drawing the real world has been a joy and at the heart of everything.


Pictures of ‘The Ogre’ (author: Terry Jones) and ‘The Angel appearing to Joan of Arc’ (author: Michael Morpurgo) are in Michael Foreman’s new autobiography A Life in Pictures, published by Pavilion, 978-1843652991, £25.00


‘AN ASTONISHING REMINDER OF FOREMAN’S SKILL AS AN ILLUSTRATOR.’


Sunday Times


‘THE GREATEST ILLUSTRATOR-STORYTELLER OF HIS TIME.’ Michael Morpurgo


In bookshops now www.pavilionbooks.com


Books for Keeps No.216 January 2016 7


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