Wonderlands - Classiq

Peter Pan remains the book that challenges my imagination and childhood wonder more than any other.
Robert Ingpen illustrated this edition published to commemorate the centenary of the first publication of
J.W. Berrie’s “Peter Pan and Wendy” and launched his series of illustrated children’s classics. NLA Publishing

“All children grow up, but some, the wild ones, the ones with a light in their eye, escape.” – Peter Pan

What can be more nurturing for children’s imagination than to lose themselves completely in picture books and reading?

This March, two of the important children’s books events took place. The Hans Christian Andersen Award, founded in 1956 and held every two years, the highest international distinction for children’s books authors and illustrators, and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, at its 20th anniversary this year, which is given annually to a person or organisation for their outstanding contribution to children’s and young adult literature. This year’s Hans Christian Andersen Award winners are Marie-Aude Murail (France) as author and Suzy Lee (Republic of Korea) as illustrator, and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award laureate is picture book author Eva Lindström (Sweden).

The month of April also debuts with a celebration of children’s books, the International Children’s Book Day, held on the birth day of Hans Christian Andersen, April 2nd. So I thought the timing was right to properly start exploring the wealth of art and writing for children’s books – a subject I have periodically covered but not as often as I would have liked – on the site, a place where dreaming, creativity and storytelling play center role. I will be hosting interviews with writers and illustrators, as well as feature the work of all-time favourites, and today I will begin with one of them. Robert Ingpen.

For more than half a century, Robert Ingpen’s illustrations have helped bring stories to life and have kept children dreaming. In 1986, Robert Ingpen was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal for his contribution to children’s literature. From Peter Pan’s Neverland to Alice’s Wonderland, from the Treasure Island to Oz, he has taken generations of children in wondrous, thrilling, fascinating journeys, keeping them curious. Whether through his illustrations for some of the most beloved classic children’s tales or his own stories, Robert Ingpen has made children believe. His illustrations are the bridge to the dreamland we forget to visit when we grow up. I am trying to keep that gate open all the time. It is a good thing to not know everything. Children walk that border between reality and fantasy every day and Robert Ingpen’s images helps everyone reading those stories never really leave that realm of the childhood imaginary. And he lets each story lead his drawing, never imposing his ideas but creating an imaginative space in the book for the reader.

In the books written by himself, the landscape and culture of his native Australia often inform the plot – The Voyage of the Poppykettle, about a band of Peruvian fishermen who fled persecution to land on the shores of Ingpen’s native Geelong, Australia, and even inspired is The Poppykettle Festival, a two-day arts event for children that takes place each year in Geelong – and a passion for conservationist and heritage has run through his works since early on. This passion for the environment is also what brought him and writer Colin Thiele close, forging an enduring friendship and collaboration. Robert Ingpen illustrated the second edition of the author’s already classic Storm Boy, a story that, gently threaded with a message about nature and compellingly accompanied by Ingpen’s illustrations, is the right way to get through to children. And that is the power of storytelling.

Wonderlands: The Illustration Art of Robert Ingpen is a celebration of Robert Ingpen’s work as an illustrator and storyteller, told through his own notes, original sketches and illustrations both from the series of 14 classic children’s tales he has reinterpreted and also some of his own characters, and revealing the places, stories and people that inspired him along the way. But Robert Ingpen’s drawings truly belong in the books he helps reimagine or creates, forever weaving the texts into children’s sparkling eyes and into their lives, and for those of us who are fortunate enough, who can get away into adulthood without losing our childhood sides for good, into our lives, too.

“I behave like an illustrator who wants to be a craftsman,
rather than a fine artist with a fine ego.”

Down the rabbit hole… How better to evoke that dreamlike state of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland than
Robert Ingpen does with his hazy backgrounds, inducing a constant state of reverie and bewilderment?
And I have never seen a child’s gestures and body language come alive as in Ingpen’s drawings of Alice. NLA Publishing

The beach and the lonely shore shape the world of ”Storm Boy”. The book was Ingpen’s start for his collaboration with
writer Colin Thiele and the launch pad for his career as a children’s books illustrator. NLA Publishing

Somewhere in the place between being awake and asleep lives the Dreamkeeper, who uses tricks and traps to lure and capture the creatures of our dreams before they can escape to reality. “The Dreamkeeper” was written and drawn by Robert Ingpen.
The book Wonderlands also includes a beautiful letter written by the artist to his granddaughter with regard to the character
of The Dreamkeeper. NLA Publishing

There is a dark undercurrent in Robert Ingpen’s drawings for Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic, “The Secret Garden”.
Just like the story itself has both beauty and darkness in it, chartering so genuinely
the main character, Mary Lennox, letting her shine in her own time. Robert Ingpen

You get lost in the warmth of Badger’s kitchen and every little detail so thoughtful crafted by Robert Ingpen. His drawings simply make you rediscover Kenneth Grahame’s beautifully crafted story, originally illustrated by E.H. Shepard.

The imaginative “Just So Stories” of Rudyard Kipling, vividly brought to life.
“Pau Amma is trying to make Magic, but he is only a silly old King Crab, and so he can’t do anything.
You can see he is all legs and claws and empty hollow shell.” Robert Ingpen, Wonderlands

”Why, sometimes I have believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast”. Children understand why.
Alice through the Looking Glass. NLA Publishing

“I just want to make pictures that help get messages across
and tell stories and, if children are involved, I want to be able to
have them maintain their natural imagination for as long as possible.”

”Wonderlands: The Illustration Art of Robert Ingpen. NLA Publishing

Quotes by Robert Ingpen, NBC Australia

Note: For the books written and/or illustrated by Robert Ingpen, please check with your favourite independent local bookshop. If you don’t have a favourite indie bookstore, here is how to find one you can support.