By books editor Carolyn Thomas. Images by Jasmine Joynson.
In just a few years Totton-born children’s author and illustrator Kim Hillyard has cornered the market in life-enhancing stories featuring quirky animal heroes.
So far she’s featured a fly, a hamster, and a mammoth in her beautifully illustrated stories for children under five. Her first three inspirational tales have tackled issues around self-belief, kindness, and courage, while her latest, Flora and Nora Hunt for Treasure, is about the power of friendship.
‘It’s never too early to share positive messages with young children’, Kim, who is the mother of two under-fives herself, told In Common. ‘Even toddlers can carry heavy emotions, such as anxiety, and I believe it’s important to start those conversations around mental health as early as possible.’
Currently living in Wimbledon, Kim was born and brought up in Totton, in the New Forest, and she still has close family and friends in the area. She went to Testwood Sports College (now Testwood School) and Barton Peveril Sixth Form College and was a keen member of Hampshire Youth Theatre through which she performed at The Nuffield and The Point in Eastleigh. ‘I think that’s where my love of storytelling first developed,’ she said.
Next came a degree in drama at the University of Exeter, after which she moved to Southampton where she ran drama clubs and workshops at several schools across the city. By this time she had also begun to enjoy writing and music and became a regular at live venues including The Joiners where her brother was a DJ.
When she was offered a job combining those passions, on music site I Like Music, she moved to London to take up the opportunity. This led to a nine-year career as a music journalist for publications including NME and Time Out and also work for the BBC. Throughout all her time in London, she has made regular visits home, not least of course to visit her mother who ran a flower shop in Shirley. Some In Common readers might also remember Kim’s grandfather who performed throughout Hampshire and the surrounding areas as clown ‘Sammy Sunshine’ throughout the 1990s.
‘I think my grandad inspired some of my books through his ability to entertain children and by creating magic through his performances at places such as Bournemouth Gardens,’ said Kim.
Once settled in Wimbledon with her young family, Kim felt drawn back to storytelling and began to write and doodle around various themes. Before long she had an illustrated book to her name. ‘In the end I wrote the story in one fell swoop, then illustrated it and taught myself the technical side of scanning and photoshopping my work.’
This debut book Mabel and the Mountain, starring a small fly with big plans, went on to win the Sainsbury’s Children’s Book Award 2020 for Best Picture Book. Brave and determined, Mabel shows young children that even if they sometimes feel insecure or unsure they can actually go on to do anything. ‘Young children can feel very small and sometimes helpless so I tried to think of something very small they could identify with and came up with a fly,’ said Kim. ‘Despite her tiny size, Mabel’s self-belief helps her to win the day’.
The follow up book Ned and the Great Garden Hamster Race is a story about kindness. Next came the tale of Gretel the Wonder Mammoth, which encourages children to embrace their feelings as they follow Gretel’s attempts to overcome anxiety and loneliness as she returns to the world after a long sleep in the ice. This book won the Illustrated Books category of the prestigious Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2023.
‘Anxiety can be incredibly isolating. Gretel discovers the bravest thing she can do is ask for help and I hope this book encourages all of us to do the same,’ said Kim.
While Kim’s themes are universal, her central characters are less mainstream. ‘I think I made these unusual choices around my lead characters simply because they each best served my narrative purpose,’ Kim said. ‘Thinking of a hamster on a wheel, busy being busy – but too busy to be kind? That idea gave me Ned.
‘Then I read research around anxiety which showed that it usually involves a feeling of being ‘stuck’ and can make the world feel unsettling and unfamiliar. As a new mother the world also seemed ‘new’ to me, so I started thinking about that and also about how to convey being stuck and found that I’d drawn a frog in an ice cube. The ideas flowed from there and Gretel was ‘born’.
‘And of course the fact that flies and hamsters and woolly mammoths have not really been featured in books before has also been a good thing and helped awareness of my work.’
Her latest book, however, features rather more usual picture-book characters in the shape of two cats called Flora and Nora who are best friends. ‘ We are a family of cat lovers so they were always going to pop up at some point,’ said Kim. ‘But it’s less usual to see two adventurous female lead characters and an exploration of the true value of friendship.’
The story Flora and Nora Hunt for Treasure features two courageous, sea-faring cats who get separated when their ship capsizes during a storm while they are off searching for secret treasure. There are plenty of books featuring friends, so Kim knew that she had to find a new angle for Flora and Nora. She took the opportunity to stress the importance of their friendship and to remind her young readers that while relationships with friends can sometimes be taken for granted, they should actually be treasured as amongst the most supportive of our lives. Flora and Nora learn important lessons from each other which help them reunite and to conclude that their friendship is better than any amount of gold coins and jewels. It’s a nice touch that the book is dedicated to her own best friend Rosie.
Kim packs her detailed, hand-painted illustrations with glorious features such as a scratching post on the cats’ ship.
‘I find painting my illustrations very mindful and relaxing’, says Kim, while acknowledging that she fits her work around her children and is often to be found at her desk in the evenings when they are asleep. From the hand-painting, to scanning and photoshopping, each book takes about six months to complete, although the actual stories usually come more quickly before that.
Already working on her fifth book, Kim is also overseeing the re-working of Mabel and the Mountain as a board book suitable for babies to enjoy.
Her own memories of childhood reading include favourites The Jolly Postman by Janet and Allan Ahlberg and Dogga by Shirley Hughes, which she recommends to this day.
‘But my absolute favourite author was Michael Rosen, and his poem Chocolate Cake was a real favourite,’ said Kim. ‘This inspired me to try and write my own poems, which my mum still has somewhere.
‘There are similarities between poetry and picture books text in that you need to say a lot in a limited number of words. And I often read poems as inspirations for illustrations.
‘As a summer holiday activity why not find a short poem which can inspire lots of other activities – not least why not try illustrating it!?’
For more information on Kim see her website Kim Hillyard.
Reflections on friendship
Coincidentally author and broadcaster Elizabeth Day wrote a book about friendship which was published earlier this year and is a great summer read for adults.
Friendaholic: Confessions of a Friendship Addict is a candid and perceptive investigation into the nature of friendship. Some friendships are for life, others for a season and Elizabeth Day explores all manner of them including the challenge of making friends and the drama and difficulty around ever dropping them – even if the friendship has become toxic. She wrote the book after the Covid-19 lockdowns made her reassess her own need for companionship. She mixes her personal experiences into some exploration of the scant research into this area. One fact that stayed with me is that apparently four to five is the idea number of close friends. It’s hard to put the effort into maintaining more friendships than that.
It’s a thought-provoking read which I heartily recommend.
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