Winter's Child

Angela McAllister (Author) Angela McAllister began her career as an illustrator, doing editorial work, poetry collections and cookery books, such as Delia Smith's Christmas Cookery and The Food and Drink Cookbook for the BBC. She started to write for children in the early eighties, illustrating her own books. Since then she has written over 50 picture books and several junior fiction titles for children. Her work is translated into many languages. For Templar, Angela has recently written the magical picture book Leon and The Place Between, where she created a mysterious world with the highly-talented illustrator Grahame Baker-Smith.Grahame Baker-Smith (Illustrator) Grahame Baker-Smith is a self-taught award-winning illustrator from Oxford who completed his training at Berkshire School of Art. He has worked in illustration for twenty years and in 2011 won the Greenaway Medal for his inspiring tale of fatherhood, FARTHER. He has illustrated numerous other picture books for Templar, including The Rhythm of the Rain which won the English 4-11 Picture Book Awards and the Greenaway shortlisted Leon and the Place Between.

McAllister's fairy tale is based upon an idyllic friendship between two young boys, Tom and a supernatural child who, unknown to the former, is the son of Winter. They play so well together that they wish winter will never end. Winter's Child out-stays his natural season to please Tom, but there is a near fatal price to be paid by his continuing presence. Winter's Child has to leave Tom to allow for the return of Spring. In painting, drawing and digital imaging, Baker-Smith creates a sequence of intricate glittering illustrations; viewers enter a crystalline world of cerulean and sapphire hues, with vertiginous peaks, spangles of snowflakes, and curtains of icicles. The spectacular visual climax is a double spread frame showing Winter in his sleigh pulled by silver horses with emerald eyes, being re-united with his boy. The themes, all of which are appropriate for classroom discussion, include the old advice to be careful what you wish for, of relationships between the generations, of the power of friendship, of the nature of making sacrifices, of the vulnerability of old age and the Biblical precept: to everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under the sun.