R.W. (Bob) Alley has been illustrating original stories since he was a child growing up in South Carolina and Maryland. With more than 100 titles to his credit, Alley may be best known as the illustrator for all of Michael Bond's Paddington Bear books for nearly 30 years. His books have been on bestseller lists and received many awards, including a Geisel Honor and a Washington Post Best Book of the Year. Firefighters to the Rescue! (Kane Press/Astra Books for Young Readers) is the first in a series of community-oriented picture books that he has both written and illustrated.
Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:
A crew of anthropomorphic firefighters zooms through a dramatic but reassuring introduction to firefighting equipment and procedures, featuring many diagrams and a little ice cream (melted).
On your nightstand now:
Nighttime reading is novel-reading time. Right now, the reading light is clipped to Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. Could the social commentary and surprising, fresh language of Dickens's David Copperfield be reborn in the Appalachian Mountains? Indeed, it can.
Also clipped: a well-illustrated biography of Raymond Briggs by Nicolette Jones. Helpfully entitled Raymond Briggs, it is part of the excellent Thames & Hudson Illustrators series. Reading bios of other kid lit creators is a good way not to feel lonely in this sometimes-solitary enterprise.
Favorite book when you were a child:
The Sailor Dog by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Garth Williams in its original Little Golden Books format. I was slow at understanding words but quick at reading pictures. This book hit the sweet spot. Words used for motivations, pictures for actions and scenes. As I learned to recognize letters as word pictures, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum became a favorite, as did The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. It was then I noticed the difference between illustrations that decorate a story and illustrations that drive the storytelling. Ernest Shepard's bright and sharp drawings are integral to Grahame's story; not so W.W. Denslow's decorations depicting Oz.
Your top five authors:
Of course, you mean...
Your top five author/illustrators:
Understanding that five is way too small a number AND that everyone currently making illustrated books are doing their absolute best, most heartfelt work, I will list creators who are no longer with us, but come easily to mind as I glance around my bookshelves:
Jean De Brunhoff, Tove Jansson, Geoffrey Hayes, Edward Ardizzone, Raymond Briggs, William Steig, Richard Scarry.
Book you've faked reading:
Depending on whom I'm trying to impress, these would include almost any book of verse, ancient or modern. Not that I don't try, but the words all seem to get fuzzy and go sideways. Understandably then, I fudge Shakespeare primarily through illustrated scenes and snippets of film. It's shameful really. Although clearly not so shameful that I shy away from admitting it here. Maybe I'm hoping for a support group of the unversed?
Book you're an evangelist for:
I'll offer three answers:
In the world of picture books, an underappreciated set of five books by New Yorker illustrator Charles E. Martin are wonderful. Island Winter (Greenwillow, 1984) began the series set on Monhegan Island in the Gulf of Maine.
In the illustrated long-form genre, The Stray by Betsy James Wyeth, illustrated by Jamie Wyeth (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1979) reminds me so much of The Wind in the Willows in both plot and pictures.
My adult selection is Raymond Briggs's autobiographical Time for Lights Out (Jonathan Cape, 2019) in which he reviews his life and career.
Book you've bought for the cover:
So many. I'm looking around the room again. Ah... The Barnabus Project by Terry, Eric, and Devin Fan. A picture book that more than lives up to its cover promise.
Book you hid from your parents:
That would be my sketchbooks. Once I got to high school this drawing and writing business was not to be encouraged as serious enterprise. These things were the pursuits of garret-dwelling, thin-broth-slurping, consumptive types who saved newspaper to line their shoes. Certainly not the proper goals of a split-level-living, beef-fed, only child.
Book that changed your life:
A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond. When I was asked to audition to illustrate a new suite of Paddington picture books, I read all the novels in order. I felt an instant connection to both bear and author. My enthusiasm continues.
Favorite line from a book:
Circling back to The Sailor Dog, I think the opening few lines are themselves a master class in how to write a picture book text. The book begins: "Born at sea in the teeth of a gale, the sailor was a dog. Scuppers was his name. After that he lived on a farm." What?! And, yet, perfect, because the story is all about Scuppers reclaiming a part of himself that's been lost. The why and how of the loss is not important. No back-story is needed. No villain. No event. Skip all that and get moving forward on Scuppers' quest and resolution.
Five books you'll never part with:
I didn't know you COULD part with a book once you acquired it. You only make more bookshelves, right?
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
I would love to be my six-year-old self encountering my favorite Little Golden Books for the first time. Especially BEFORE I could read. That's the thing about reading. Once you learn how to read, you can't not read. Even if you don't know the language, I think you still try to puzzle out the letters for a moment. And in that moment, the primacy of the image is lost. That's why I wish in art museums the labels were well away from the paintings, and in parks the description of all things involving the view was tucked off to the side.
In my adult life, I'd list John Irving's The World According to Garp, Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces. Although, since time and place always inform the reading, the experiences would likely be different.
Why make picture books?
I think all children need places to go that they can control in their own time and in their own way. This is the special thing about a book. Especially an illustrated book. If you've ever watched a child holding a book on their lap, their face close to the page, concentrating hard, then you know exactly why making picture books is so important and so rewarding.