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‘We’re very serious about being silly’


‘We’re very serious about being silly,’ says Hendra, firmly. Linnet agrees. ‘People don’t always value comedy and silliness because they don’t quite see what it is. But when you take the thing in front of you and you look at it in a different way to make it funny or make up a silly story about it, that’s a way of understanding the world around you. It’s what scientists do, they look at something in a different way to understand it better. It’s using a part of your brain to see something from a different point of view and therein lies empathy. Being silly is really important and it can have so much creative power.’


While it was the shared love of silliness Hendra and Linnet discovered on that first date that led to their burgeoning romance, their individual backgrounds also meshed in a way that perhaps made working together almost inevitable. Having graduated with a degree in illustration, Hendra was working in Brighton for an illustration agency. Linnet, meanwhile, had studied graphic design in Derby but pursued music full-time until moving to Brighton, where he’d grown up as a child. ‘Bored stiff’ in his new computing career, Linnet popped into Hendra’s studio one day where she was working on some technical illustrations (‘not quite my forte,’ she observes dryly). Linnet pointed out that the rocket she was drawing


would never fly and started scribbling over her work. Soon they were working together on Hendra’s jobbing illustrator work, with Linnet doing the spread design and technical shapes before Hendra brought in the colour and texture, crucially enabling her to take on more work at a time when they were expecting their child.


Unfortunately, it also meant that Paul’s contribution slipped under the radar as the work had to be in Hendra’s name. ‘It didn’t seem like it was that important but we didn’t know that Barry the Fish with Fingers was going to be really popular and would lead to another book and another book. I feel like we’re still paying that price today when Paul doesn’t get mentioned and recognised,’ says Hendra, visibly upset at the lack of credit for Linnet in a shared career that includes Norman the Slug with the Silly Shell, Nobot the Robot with No Bottom, Wanda and the Alien (now a TV series) and many more.


Nowadays that is being redressed and earlier books that had only Hendra listed as the author and illustrator now have both names when they are reissued and, slowly, there is growing recognition that they are a 50/50 partnership. Even without that earlier history, it is perhaps inevitable that there will be some confusion, given that their way of working is so rare, with not just ideas and words but sketches and artwork batted back and forth and worked on equally. However, as well as marvellous picture books it also leads to a very productive workflow. Along with more Supertato adventures they have three books coming out with Macmillan plus books written for Hodder, illustrated by Nick East (of Goodnight Spaceman fame).


‘It was the missing piece of the jigsaw to meet Paul, a fellow nitwit,’ says Hendra. And all fans of brilliantly silly books created by endearingly silly couples should be very glad she did say yes, in the end, to ‘only a drink’.


Barry the Fish with Fingers, Simon and Schuster, 978-1847385161, £6.99


Supertato: Veggies in the Valley of Doom, Simon and Schuster, 978-1471171703, £6.99


I Need a Wee, Simon and Schuster, 978-1471120879, £6.99


Norman the Slug with the Silly Shell, Simon and Schuster, 978-1847389763, £6.99


Nobot the Robot with No Bottom, Simon and Schuster, 978-0857074454, £6.99 Wanda and the Alien, Red Fox, 978-1849410182,


Michelle Pauli is a freelance writer and editor specialising in books and education. She created and edited the Guardian children’s books site.


Books for Keeps No.231 July 2018 7


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