The Song That Sings Us: Cover Reveal

The Song That Sings Us is an exhilarating new novel from Nicola Davies to be published in October by Firefly Press. We feel hugely privileged to be asked to reveal the cover which features stunning artwork by Jackie Morris.

The Song That Sings Us is the story of twins Ash and Xeno, and their older sister Harlon, who has been raised to protect her younger siblings because they have siardw: a power to communicate with animals that is outlawed by the state. But when the ruling sinister Automators attack their mountain home, they are forced to flee for their lives. It is an immediately gripping edge-of-the-seat first chapter, which sees the siblings escape on snowboards down a dangerous gully.

The thrilling and dangerous adventure continues as each must journey alone through the ice fields, forests and oceans of Rumyc to try to rescue the others and fulfil a mysterious promise about a lost island made to their mother.

Nicola told us: “The Song that Sings Us is rooted in all that I really know about animals; their ability to think, to feel and to communicate. But it is not set in the real world; it is a fantasy adventure with chases and escapes, fights and mysteries, death and miraculous life. It contains magic, but that part of the story is real – the real magic of nature with which every human has deep need to connect.

“I hope that, in travelling to this fantasy world, readers will see the truth of ours.”

“I want to inspire a beautiful rebellion of invention and creativity against the darkness that threatens to engulf the glorious brightness of the natural world.”

Nicola Davies

The book has a touching dedication to Jackie Morris, Cathy Fisher and Molly Howell, and whilst Jackie Morris and Nicola Davies have been friends for years, this is the first time they have worked together. As well as the cover illustration, Jackie has created beautiful artwork for the chapter headings.

Jackie Morris said, “When you love a book so much it is the hardest thing to work on the cover. I try to give everything to every piece of work I do, but in this case there was the long friendship I have with Nicola Davies, a person I both love and admire, AND the fact that the story is amazing.

“Trying to do the words justice is always the problem. For this cover I worked on clapboard, a medium new to me, but one that made the colours of the starling really sing. They are such beautiful birds. And it was so important that the image sings, in every way possible. Finding the image for the book, that’s another problem, but somehow that little starling, so full of its own power, she is what sang out from the text.

“I heard this book first. Nicola and I often would call each other when we’d done the first drafts of a work, and read to each other. Restrictions had eased and Nicola, Cathy Fisher and I were a bubble, and Nicola would come around every week with the next ‘instalment’. How utterly amazing. It made images dance in my mind’s eye. It was an honour and a privilege to work on this cover. For now it’s the best it can be, and my hope is it’s the beginning of a series. I cannot wait for the next one.”

Special proof copies of The Song That Sings Us are landing on doormats this week. A limited edition deluxe gift hardback, is available to pre-order now and will be published on 14th October 2021. Visit the Firefly Press website to place your order.

Follow Nicola and Jackie and Firefly on Twitter for more updates. You can listen to Nicola read the first chapter of The Song That Sings Us below.

Cover Reveal: Golden Flowers for Little Dragon

Golden Flowers for Little Dragon is the latest book by Dr Ffion Jones, a Swansea-based author whose books deal with challenging and difficult topics. The illustrations are by Gareth Jones. This book fills a need for child-friendly literature to support the thousands of families that are forced to deal with the devastating news that their child has a life-limiting disease.

Ffion’s previous books have dealt with bullying, inclusivity, social issues and the Nurse Ted series which is used to explain serious illnesses, such as cancer, to children.

Ffion told us, “Families supported by charities such as ‘Together for Short Lives’ said that their children had very few books with which they could identify. As one parent said, books can help you realise that your feelings after a bereavement are normal and that things can get better.

Golden Flowers for Little Dragon focuses on the siblings’ feelings and looks at how they cope at different stages of bereavement. My hope is that children reading the book will identify with the characters, and that caregivers can use the book as a gentle way to open a dialogue about loss and grief.”

We are delighted to be asked to reveal the cover, and so without further ado, here is Gareth Jones’ artwork:

Golden Flowers for Little Dragon follows a dragon family’s journey through loss and grief following the death of the youngest sibling, Little Dragon. Covering life before Little Dragon dies, his death, and then the period of time after his death, the book supports children preparing for or coping with the death of a sibling, including those with rare or undiagnosed conditions. By focusing on how Little Dragon’s brother and sister, Tan and Dewi, are affected by his illness and death, the book normalises confusing emotions such as anger, guilt and sadness that may seem overwhelming to a child faced with these circumstances. The book also includes an information section, written by a paediatric palliative care nurse, incorporating questions for children to work through with adults.

Illustrator Gareth Jones, said, “It’s been a privilege to work with Ffion on Golden Flowers for Little Dragon. I felt it was important that the characters in the book were believable, expressive and reflected the story accurately. Living in Swansea it seemed fitting to champion Wales’ unique and magical landscapes such as Three Cliffs and Paviland Cave that are fit for dragons to roam.”

The book has already received high praise from professionals and healthcare organisations.

This beautifully written story gently explores the most difficult of topics; the death of a sibling. I look forward to recommending to families in the future and only wish it had been around for many families in the past.

Dr Jo Griffiths, Consultant in Paediatric Palliative Medicine

A key strength of the story is the overriding message that everyone responds to the loss of a loved one differently, but that all emotions are equally valid.

Dr Shamira Fernando, Clinical Psychologist

Golden Flowers for Little Dragon is published by The Book Guild. You can pre-order from Waterstones and further information is available at Ffion’s website. You can follow Ffion and illustrator Gareth on Twitter.


Dr Ffion Jones Biography

Ffion Jones is a children’s author and illustrator, focusing on books that deal with challenging subjects. She has a PhD in English Literature from the University of Wales, Bangor. She writes and illustrates the Nurse Ted series (www.nurseted.com), which is used worldwide to help parents explain serious illness such as cancer to children. More recently, she founded a social enterprise called Fly Me Stories (www.flymestories.com) which sends personalised stories to seriously unwell children all around the UK. Her other books include Emily is Being Bullied: What Can She Do? co-authored with Professor Helen Cowie and Dr Harriet Tenenbaum (Jessica Kingsley Publisher, 2018), A School for Everyone: Stories & Lesson Plans to Teach Inclusivity & Social Issues (Jones, Cowie, Tenenbaum, Jessica Kingsley Publisher, September 2021) and To the Moon and Back (Ventorros Press, November 2021). Ffion lives in Swansea.

The Screen Thief Blog Tour

We are absolutely thrilled to be taking part in this Blog Tour for Swansea-based author and illustrator, Helen and Thomas Docherty. They really are the perfect picturebook pairing and have just published yet another playful, engaging and colourful story that will entertain by the bucketload.

The Snaffle has arrived in the city and she just wants to play – but everyone is distracted by phones, tablets and devices. They don’t seem to have time for each other. So the Snaffle becomes The Screen Thief and embarks on a mission to change the city into a more playful and more caring place. Ultimately, eating screens doesn’t do this for her, and leaves her feeling lonely, but a wonderful friend called Max is kind and caring and together they put things right.

Clearly ‘screen time’ is a huge issue for parents and teachers and striking a balance is important in all our lives, so this book will appeal to everyone looking to provide more than a subtle dose of encouragement to adopt healthier habits.

Helen’s joyous rhyming text is funny and great fun to read aloud. Thomas’ illustrations are so vibrant and full of detail – we’ve been poring over them over several bedtimes, reading the emotions of the characters and looking how they change through the story.

It’s totally apt therefore that Thomas joins us on this blog tour to give an insight into the illustration process.

Creating the Snaffle: Thomas Docherty on illustrating THE SCREEN THIEF

Throughout the story, the Snaffle goes through a whole range of emotions, so above all she had to be expressive. At the same time she gets up to plenty of mischief, so she needed to be dynamic. I also had to make sure that she was loveable. After all, she acts with the innocent impulses of a small child and that vulnerability comes through at the end of the story.

As always, she went through many versions before we decided on the final design. From the start, her general body shape remained more or less the same. The hard part was solving the question of how to resolve her face and head.  In the end I found that the long ears helped to make her very expressive and the trunk was fun and surprising. It was also good for sniffing and tasting the screens!

It mentions in the text that the Snaffle is small and blue. I was going to be painting the illustrations by hand and I wanted the Snaffle to stand out. I found a bottle of blue ink that I particularly liked, renamed it SNAFFLE BLUE and used it only for painting the Snaffle.

I had a lot of fun hiding the Snaffle in the library, the cinema and the TV shop and I hope children will enjoy looking for her in the illustrations. My favourite moment where she eats a screen is when she is walking away with the ice cream sign from outside the cinema.

When I’m creating a book, lots of the ideas never get included. If there was one set of pictures I would have liked to keep, it was of the Snaffle reacting to the different tastes and textures of the screens. In the end there just wasn’t room for everything.

One early idea that I’m glad was taken out was a moment where the Snaffle is arrested by the police for eating everyone’s screens. It’s just too sad!

The city is full of so many other characters. Originally I imagined these as made up creatures but in the end we went for animals, which made the Snaffle stand out more.

I had so much fun drawing them all glued to their screens, oblivious to everything around them.

Of course the Snaffle wants to join in!

Creating The City

One of the fun things about illustrating The Screen Thief was that it is set in a city. I hadn’t drawn a city before in a picture book and I was excited about all the visual opportunities that this presented. It also meant a huge amount of work as I had to plan the city from scratch.

At the beginning, I tried a slightly futuristic city with rounded buildings and bubble cars. However, in the end we decided that it would be more relatable to children if it was set in the present day.

The most complicated image to compose was the first page when the Snaffle arrives in the city. I tried lots of options including a train station and coming out of a subway. In the end I wanted to show all the main locations in the story on this page, so I went for a roof top view of a square. You can see Max’s house, the Library, the cinema and the park.

I even drew myself a map to make sure I knew where all the other places the Snaffle visits made sense.

The city is full of shops selling all sorts of things (I actually walked past a cactus shop just like this recently!). Of course the Snaffle is only interested in the TV shop…

As always, some of my rough ideas didn’t make it into the book. I did some sketches of inside the animal’s homes and some other locations which would have been fun to include.

Although cities are full of life, the Snaffle soon discovers that they can be lonely places too. There is a moment in the story where despite all the screens the Snaffle has gobbled, she still feels empty inside. What’s missing? Nothing that a screen can give her, what the Snaffle needs is a friend. Setting this scene in a deserted ally seemed to fit the Snaffle’s mood.

The park is not mentioned in the text, but it seemed the perfect place to develop the key message of the story. At the beginning, the Snaffle comes across children in the playground. They are so absorbed in their screens that they are not even playing. However, by the end of the story the park has been transformed into a magical space full of activity. Max and the Snaffle have managed to bring everyone together.

Huge thanks to Thomas Docherty for preparing this blog and sharing his insight and these amazing images.

The Screen Thief by Helen Docherty & Thomas Docherty is out now, available from your local independent bookshop, and is published by Alison Green Books. Cover to Cover may still have some signed copies.

This is not the first time that Helen and Thomas have featured on our blog. Check out the interview that we did with them last year.