I fell in love with Michael Foreman's illustrations many years ago when I first discovered Michael Morpurgo's books. I soon found out that he also wrote and illustrated his own stories, including War Boy and War Game which were stories about his experience of World War II. I found out a lot more about Michael Foreman and his huge body of work when I borrowed a fascinating new book from the library called A Life in Pictures.
A Life in Pictures is written by Michael Foreman himself, and looks back over his long career in the creation of books for children. It is a beautiful book that is packed with Michael's illustrations and stories about the books that he has worked on and the people he has worked with. You can read about Michael's war childhood, the importance of location and landscape in his illustrations, the people that have influenced him and the people that he has collaborated with.
If you've read a Michael Morpurgo book you've probably seen Michael Foreman's illustrations. The M-Team have been collaborating for over 20 years (their first book together being Arthur, High King of Britain, published in 1994).
I've always felt that Michael Foreman's illustrations are the perfect match for Michael Morpurgo's stories. Michael Foreman mentions in A Life in Pictures that 'Michael Morpurgo not only writes good stories, he writes good pictures. His stories are full of them.' His illustrations for Morpurgo's stories are usually in black and white, but it's the smaller, shorter stories, like Little Manfred, where his full-colour illustrations shine.
Over the years Michael Foreman has worked with many other authors, both living and dead. He has brought the stories of Shakespeare, Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Dickens and Kenneth Grahame to life, bringing the 'classics' to a new generation of children.
My favourite edition of Michael Foreman's classics is Kenneth Graham's The Wind in the Willows. The colours are so vibrant and the characters leap off the page. Michael also travelled to New Zealand in 1987 to visit Kiri Te Kanawa to research a book based on legends told to her by her grandmother. This book became The Land of the Long White Cloud.
A Life in Pictures is a fascinating read for anyone who loves books for children and would be a valuable resource for artists or those wanting to become illustrators.
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