A delightful curve-ball gem of a picture book!

This month, we’re releasing a delightful curve-ball gem of a picture book – a study in fun, surreal contrasts in the tradition of story-telling masters such as Spike Milligan. That is, you can read it as a philosophical treatise about the nature of the universe – or as light-hearted amusement for a preschooler who thinks poo is funny – or both! Our picture-book consultant Janet McAllister caught up with genius author and illustrator Dana Winter about the great I AM, her chameleon follow-up to her first Beatnik book, Thank You.

JM: Dana! I’m excited to talk with you. Worm in I AM is searching for security and identity, a bit like the baby bird in P.D. Eastman’s classic Are You My Mother? – except instead of a mother, Worm calls it “God”. Why “God”? What does that word mean to you?

DW: “God” has so many different connotations for different people – some positive, some not so much. It took a bit for me to be brave enough to use it, knowing how subjective those three letters are, and also, I’m not religious… I really wanted to use the word in a nature-centric way… as the creative force that exists in all things. What if everything is ‘God’ experiencing itself? From a microbe in the soil to the ever-expanding galaxy, including you, including me, including a worm? I AM seeds this idea in a simple way.

I AM is an amazing epic in miniature – you offer humour, drama, wonder, scary meanness, farce, and ecological science in just a few pages. The superb tonal shifts create a whole surprising adventure journey – you subvert expectations at the same time as keeping up a comforting rhythm. Why delve into a whole gamut of emotional experience?

Well, that’s all part of life and being human. Life is all those things – including the boy who is mean to Worm. I think everyone has suffered or overcome difficulty, at some point. For me, being human is inclusive of everything – we are here to feel it all.
“I am” is such an empowering statement – As humans, we create with our thoughts and beliefs. I am too much, I am amazing. I am not enough, I am magnificent. In that way, we are responsible for our experience, whether we know it or not. We are all artists in this way, whether we know that or not!
What I enjoy about the story – and it kind of surprised me – is that it is so light-hearted and simple, but parents and children reading it can use it as a jumping-off point to talk about some really deep and meaningful things, if they choose to. I write my stories for the parents as well as the children – looking back, reading to my own children when they were young was such a precious and bonding time.
And I wanted the book to be comical because if we can’t laugh at ourselves it’s going to be a long road… I am sure God is in a snort of laugher just as much as in a knee-bended prayer.

This reminds me of Spike Milligan putting God into Bad Jelly the Witch – but where Spike’s idea was “God is as real as the cow and the goblins and fairies”, your message is: “God is in everything.”

I loved Bad Jelly the Witch! I don’t know how many times I listened to the recording growing up. It was my favourite – I loved how wacky it was, and it was so scary.

I AM is a little scary too – as well as the mean boy, Worm has to deal with the heat of the sun and a hungry bird.

Yes, those encounters on Worm’s journey are an essential part of her coming home to herself – illustrating the idea that in order to grow you have to go through drama and challenge, it’s never a straight line. Just ask the caterpillar whose wings won’t work if it doesn’t struggle out of the chrysalis.

And the poo?

Well, that’s the rich compost, that’s Worm’s beautiful contribution. I love the poems of Mary Oliver; she celebrates the often-overlooked, quieter moments in nature:
“When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement.”
Worm doesn’t understand how vital her poo is – but it’s what the world is built on, it gives us soil health and therefore all life. It’s easy to overlook something that comes naturally to you. It took me years to come back to seeing drawing as a valuable offering.

As someone who can’t draw – I am here to agree it’s absolutely valuable, please continue! Your illustrations look so breezy and fun, and your use of colour is so effective, supporting the reader’s journey – the colour helps us to feel as well as see Worm’s experiences. What are your aims and process when illustrating?

I want the illustrations to capture the emotion and mood. Capturing essence in a freeze-frame, with a few strokes of pencil – that’s so rewarding.
My process is quite varied. I paint backgrounds quite expressively and messily on my studio floor. I sketch anywhere, sometimes on the lawn, drawing bugs. Doing it all digitally would be way more streamlined, slicker and quicker, but I can’t give up the tactile nature of graphite on paper and the spontaneity of paint with water.
I do then combine and refine it on the computer. Over recent years, I’ve worked quite hard at loosening that part up – as ironic as that sounds! It’s not been easy necessarily, as the perfectionist in me tries to kick in a lot, but I enjoy the process and the finished product more.

To twist Hundertwasser slightly: God is in the wobbly lines.

Exactly!