Author inspired by 64-year-old teddy bear

BECK ELEVEN - The Press 02/11/2014

ARTIST AT WORK: Children's book author and illustrator, Gavin Bishop.

Award-winning children's book author and illustrator Gavin Bishop tells BECK ELEVEN that swallowing a teddy bear's eye inspired his latest book. Sort of.

Most kids love a packet of brightly-coloured pencils and a pad but Gavin Bishop wasn't most kids. He wanted to be an artist. Today he is one of the country's most cherished children's book illustrators and writers so it is fair to say he achieved that dream. Not bad for a kid who didn't actually know what being an artist meant.
"I was tall for my age so all everybody said was 'are you going to be a policeman?'
"I never was. I was always going to be an artist but I doubt I'd ever really seen a painting on a wall. Maybe I'd seen a reproduction of something like Scottish cattle or the pictures on a calendar. Back then everyone got free calendars."

Bishop, 68, has just released a hardback book called Teddy One-Eye, it's the autobiography of a teddy bear filled with lovely insights into New Zealand culture and history. The teddy belongs to a boy but has spent vast periods of time tucked away in cupboards only being able to hear the stories of the family he belongs to.
The idea came to mind when Bishop uncovered his real-life childhood teddy bear in a cupboard.
That bear is now 64 years old, has virtually no fur left and wears the scars of cotton stitching and patch-up jobs but he's a solid little fellow. When Bishop takes it to classroom readings, younger children take one look at it and say 'ooh yuck!'

As the book's title explains, the teddy has only one good eye. The other is a stitched-on black button.
As a child, Bishop had actually swallowed one of his teddy's eyes. He told his grandmother what he'd done. She only warned: "You'll most likely die."

He didn't. 
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Random House NZ

RRP $34.99

Hardback