Oliver Jeffers, A Child of Books, Intrigues G3 Readers

IMAGINATION IS FREE from Oliver Jeffers on Vimeo.

The above short film Imagination Is Free by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston is connected to their recently released book A Child of Books, and provides a glimpse of their creative talents. A couple of weeks ago, our third graders began an author inquiry about Oliver Jeffers, with everyone totally intrigued from the very first book I shared: The Incredible Book Eating Boy. ​

As we continued reading his books together, students began to share what they noticed; for example Oliver Jeffers is an author and illustrator of fiction picture books; his books are often funny, while also being very creative and imaginative; the stories give readers many ideas; there is lots to explore in his books, clues hidden in the illustrations; the amount of text varies but it is usually not a lot; he does not always work alone and collaborates with other authors, illustrators and artists.

All these observations then led to a whole lot of questions about Oliver Jeffers, his personal background as well as his creative process, such as
How does he get all his creative ideas?
How does he decide on the punctuation he uses?
How many different people does he work with?
What is his favourite book (from the ones he has written; from the ones written by others)?
​How long has he been writing?
How did he become a writer?
What tools does he use for drawing?

And one of the most popular questions: Would he like to come to visit us?

In addition to reading and exploring his beautiful picture books as a way of finding answers to our questions, we took advantage of the many online resources available: videos in which he shares writing tips, talks about his particular illustration style as well as what his day and creative process look like (see the embedded video at the end of this post). Here are some of the things we found out about him so far:

He is from Northern Ireland and loves telling stories.
He gets the inspiration for his stories from all kinds of different places.
He always carries a notebook and something to write with him to jot down ideas.
He thinks that picture books are a great platform for him to tell stories.
When he creates a book, words and pictures happen at the same time (not first the words, then the pictures).
He organises his work with lists and ideas he puts on a chalkboard in his studio.
He plans / sketches out his stories first.
He uses different tools/materials; for example pencils, crayons, acrylics, collage - whatever works best to tell the story.
​His books have been translated in many languages.
​He loves being an author, illustrator, artist and filmmaker.

Next week, we will sort out the information we have gathered so far, checking which of our initial questions were answered and which new questions have come up in the process. We will encourage our third graders to check out one of Oliver Jeffers wonderful books over the October break to share as a read-aloud at home.