Interview with Harry Woodgate, Author of “Grandad’s Camper”

How would you describe the experience of both writing and illustrating Grandad’s Camper?

Writing and illustrating Grandad’s Camper was such an enjoyable experience - although I love illustrating texts for other authors, the process of illustrating a book feels quite different when you’ve written the story as well. You get total creative control over the world you’re building, and you can cross-pollinate things between text and image so that they work as one cohesive form of communication. I find that process really rewarding.

What do you enjoy most about illustrating children’s books?

I love being able to bring a story to life, to create worlds that feel complex and three-dimensional, and most importantly, vibrant and inviting for young readers. If reading a book is like visiting somewhere on holiday, writing and illustrating one is like living in that place, getting to know the people, planting beautiful things in your front garden and watching them grow.

I find it immensely rewarding to have the opportunity to create books that I can share with children and adults alike; that I can hold in my hands and say, “I made that”; and that I hope can make a real, tangible difference to the children who read them.

What inspired Grandad’s Camper?

The inspiration for Grandad’s Camper comes from a variety of places. I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on LGBTQ+ representation in illustrated children’s literature, and two of the things that stood out to me were a lack of inclusion of older members of the community, and a strong focus on ‘coming out’ stories, which is only one aspect of queer identity.

I was also inspired by personal experiences and relationships - both the stories passed down by my family about my own grandad, who I was never able to grow up with, and also other older male figures and role models I had when I was younger, who I wanted to honour and celebrate.

What do you hope young readers will take away from Grandad’s Camper? What about adults?

I hope that with books like Grandad’s Camper, as well as the wealth of other LGBTQ+ positive picture books that have been published recently, such as The Pirate Mums by Jodie Lancet-Grant & Lydia Corry; Nen and the Lonely Fisherman by Ian Eagleton & James Mayhew, and My Daddies by Gareth Peter and Garry Parsons, children will be able to grow up seeing all different kinds of families not only represented but celebrated in the books they read. Picture books are one of the first ways young readers are introduced to the wider world, so it feels important to make that early interaction one of inclusivity, equality and acceptance.

I also hope that, being partly about bereavement and grief, Grandad’s Camper might help children explore these difficult topics and the complex emotions that come with them through the safe context of a picture book, whether they have experienced loss in real life or not.

As for adults, the same hopes apply - in fact, these are things many of us tend to forget, at one point or another. I find the earnestness and unpretentiousness of picture books to be a helpful reminder.

The fact of two grandfathers is an accepted fact in the story rather than the source of challenge or conflict. Can you discuss this choice and the space it opened up for exploring other topics or ideas?

This choice was at once conscious and entirely automatic. Why would it be the source of conflict? Why should it be? I absolutely think there is a need for books which address different forms of prejudice, from homophobia and transphobia to ableism and racism, because these are unfortunately things that many children will still experience and which they deserve to see discussed honestly in their books.

However, in order for us to truly push back against these things, we need to be able to imagine a world without them - and that means having books in which diversity is actively celebrated: where people of different sexualities, genders, ethnicities, body types, and so on, are able to exist without being forced to assimilate into a very narrow interpretation of society.

That is what I hoped to achieve with Grandad’s Camper, and which is a guiding principle in anything I work on.