Beloved Irish picture book author and illustrator Peter Donnelly was in the house for this month’s We Love Books. We got to delve into his own personal backstory, as well as getting his tips and tricks for being a top-class author and illustrator.
Subscribe to We Love Books on RTÉ, Apple or Spotify – listen up top now!
Readers will know him from his best-selling, award-winning President series, (The President’s Glasses, The President’s Dog, The President’s Cat, The President’s Surprise and even The President’s Sticker Activity Book) amongst many other colourful titles for younger readers but creating books is a relatively new chapter in his own story. As an animator, Peter worked on some of the biggest films of the millennial childhood, including The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go To Heaven and Anastasia.
So why the move from a hugely successful animation career to author? Peter says with stories at the heart of the artwork, it wasn’t such a big leap.
Petert Donnelly with some of his characters at home.
He says: “The mixture of drawing and telling stories and learning about how stories are created kinda gave me the idea that I would love to create my own stories and I didn’t know whether I could – that was the challenge. The power of writing a story and trying to get those emotions, making children laugh at places, making them sad at places, just all those emotional things you can put in books, that’s what interested me.”
When it comes to his own stories, Peter agrees that it’s a bold move to write about a well-known person who is currently alive. His advice?
“If you’re going to write a book about somebody that’s alive, be nice about them! I’m a big fan of the president but when I wrote the first book, The President’s Glasses, the President part came last. He was the last piece of the jigsaw.”
The cover of Peter’s book – The President’s Glasses.
Peter’s idea was that a pigeon would provide a bird’s eye view of the city, allowing him to draw all his favourite inner-city spots and once he had the idea that the pigeon could help the President, the whole story came together in a single day.
After writing so many books about the President (who interestingly is never actually named within the stories), has he ever met Michael D Higgins in person?
“I have never met the man. I’m after writing five books about him trying to meet him and I haven’t got to. Come on! I’m waiting for that call!”
In terms of advice for young fans hoping to follow in his footsteps someday, Peter says you don’t always have to be the most avid reader in the class to end up with your name on the cover of a book. “I came to reading books late, but I think I’ve caught up! If you like to draw or you like to write stories, you just keep practising!”
Listen to Peter’s full interview on We Love Books – available wherever you get your podcasts.
For more great podcasts for young people visit rte.ie/jrpodcasts.