Giles Andreae
About Author
Giles Andreae's first children's book, Rumble in the Jungle, was an instant hit and has been followed by several bestselling sequels, including Commotion in the Ocean and Dinosaurs Galore.
The Lion Who Wanted to Love won the Red House Best Picture Book Award in 1998, as did Pants in 2003, whilst Giraffes Can't Dance has become established as an international children's classic. Captain Flinn and the Pirate Dinosaurs, with multi award-winning illustrator Russell Ayto, is also a bestseller.
His children's books have now sold more than 2 million copies, making him one of the most successful children's authors working today.
Giles Andreae is also the creator of the iconic stickman, Purple Ronnie.
He lives with his wife and their four young children in Notting Hill and Cornwall.
Interview
A couple of years ago Giles Andreae, creator of the Purple Ronnie and Edward Monkton characters, was approached by BBC to make a series of small films about joy, love and kindness. The producers had seen his short animation, The Pig of Happiness, based on an Edward Monkton book, and wanted more.
Given that most of us recognise Andreae's work as a celebration of life, it's ironic that he knows only too well what a world without happiness can be like, having suffered from a bad bout of depression at a particular point in his life that he believes was triggered by a specific collision of events.
He describes suffering depress as "the most powerful and extraordinary experience, quite unlike what I'd expect depression to be". Feeling more like "abject panic", he says he was completely terrified the whole time. Looking back, he concludes it was a psychological illness that was "far darker than anything I had ever imagined".
Today, however, he can also see the positive side of the experience. "What you can get from that kind of experience is rediscovering joy. It's only when your life seems to be completely devoid of joy that you can rediscover it as if for the first time."
Today, Andreae has recovered from the illness and hasn't been affected by depression since, but what it has left him with is a better idea than most of us what happiness actually means. "Rediscovering joy was a heartfelt, extraordinary thing and you realise what a special thing we have as a species to be able to feel that," he says. "We need to make the most of it."
Andreae hopes to do this by passing on the 'meaning of happiness' through a small series of books branded as the 'World of Happy' which is published by Egmont this month, April.
The books are each based on one of the 13 two-minute films he went on to create for the BBC, so look out for titles like 'The Dance of Wallowy Bigness - a story about being beautiful inside' and 'Cow Party - a story about love (and dancing)'.
"These are the things that lead us to live a happy and fulfilling life, things like friendship, tolerance and forgiveness", says the author. Each story is based on an animal and these are gorgeously illustrated by Janet Cronin.
They are deceptively simple - each story is told in under 200 words - and he admits that writing them within this word count was no easy task. "It is far easier to write too much than too little. I had to introduce the protagonist, set the problem and resolve it in about 170 words or one minute and 40 seconds for television," he explains. "Every word had to count."
His own personal favourite is 'The Knitting Gorilla - a story about being true to yourself'. "It's such an odd concept and I love the idea, the message that we end up not being person our parents expect or that we expect to be, and what courage we need to stick with that."
The books introduce concepts like love and fun in formats and with storylines that will appeal to preschool children but, with messages like that of the Knitting Gorilla, teenagers are also bound to fall in love with them. Giles hopes that their parents will, too.
Andreae is an experienced writer for children and his picture books include Rumble in the Jungle and Giraffes Can't Dance, about being true to yourself. He says, "The more I work with children, the more I tend to write books with messages. I'm really surprised and encouraged by their ability to absorb morals in stories - it's far greater than you'd expect.
"Children tend to live in a parallel fantasy world in the playground and they find moral stories more relevant to their real lives, so they find them easier to digest than you'd expect."
Andreae points to his own childhood favourites like Dr Seuss's Yurtle the Turtle or The Sneetches as helping identify his own fundamental beliefs as a child. "They are very big stories with big messages about how we should live our lives."
As for his own stories within the World of Happy books, he says, "Every single story is something fundamental that I would like my own children to understand about life." He can't wait to write more.
World of Happy books:
The Knitting Gorilla a story about being true to yourself
Cow Party a story about love (and dancing)
The Dance of Wallowy Bigness a story about being beautiful inside
The Little Penguin a story about being brave
The Dog Machine a story about celebrating our differences
Planet of the Bears a story about looking after our world
Two Monkeys a story about true friendship
The Thanking Sharks a story about good manners
The Ministry of Niceness a story about spreading happiness
The Pink Cricket a story about following your dreams
Tortoise Football a story about playing together
The Lovely Whales a story about love and happiness
The Elephant and the Spider a story about overcoming your fears
