Robyn Belton’s Herbert The Brave Sea Dog (Craig Potton) had a long gestation before its publication in 2008 and subsequent Russell Clark Award 2009, but is now attracting deserved attention from its acquisition by Walker Books Australia. The newly-released edition by their associated US publisher Candlewick was reviewed by Jim McMullan,( a well-respected illustrator himself www.katemcmullan.com) , in last Saturday’s New York Times www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/books/review/McMullan-t.html
Robyn, with acknowledged support of Joan de Hamel and Joy Cowley, spent ten years perfecting the text of Herbert which had to reduce detail to the limitations of a picture book, while maintaining emotion and drama in achieving this. She certainly needed no such help with the illustrations, Robyn comments on Jim’s review “ Interesting description of the ‘looseness’ of the drawing style; this was entirely deliberate on my part in order to convey the immediacy . … to create that quality, each painting took at least four attempts to get it right!”
Publisher Robbie Burton chose Herbert to be the first picture book published by Craig Potton, partly because Robyn had lived so long in Nelson and was a participant in the Herbert drama.
Robyn is represented by Richards Literary Agency
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