A rogue toad inspired a west author’s heartwarming celebration of individuality, acceptance, and kindness.
Kelly Brodie-Brown hopes picture book The Style Secrets of Gareth McGreen leaves readers feeling “a little bit braver, a little bit bolder in how they want to present themselves to the world.”
“I want them to think, ‘The things that I like and the things that I’m drawn to are what make me me, and I shouldn’t be afraid to embrace that’,” she said.
Seeing Gareth land on bookshop shelves in August was as surreal and amazing as UK-born Kelly had imagined.
When we spoke, just a week after its release, the book had already garnered publishing industry praise and messages of congratulations from strangers.
“Gareth McGreen first leapt into my imagination when I was on holiday and I ran into a particularly warty yet undeniably dapper-looking toad staring up at me from a puddle,” Kelly said.
“Toads tend to get a bad rap in stories, often dismissed as ugly or unpleasant, so I thought, what if this little guy was a super suave style icon!?”
The tale of a stylish amphibian crafting dazzling outfits for animals of all sorts soon took shape.
A shy young possum teaches Gareth to look past the fabric and frills to discover the real secret to feeling fabulous.
Her daughter, Astrid, 6, listened to many iterations of Gareth as Kelly painstakingly crafted her idea into a succinct, rhythmic, and lyrical story.
“Finding my way into picture books came from reading to Astrid,” Kelly said.
“Long before she could actually understand what we were reading to her, we would read her three picture books every night.
“Our favourites were well-crafted rhyming stories with a message at heart.”
Kelly turns to books to deliver words of wisdom to Astrid, to build her confidence and help her navigate life’s challenges.
“It’s a lovely way to teach children – entertaining them, and hopefully making them laugh,” she said.
“But any book that’s too didactic in its messaging elicits an eyeroll from my daughter.”
She knew Gareth needed to be subtle.
“The heart of this book is the big celebration of diversity and the spirit of individuality,” Kelly said.
“What makes the world an interesting place is that we’re all different.
“It’s about finding your own style and finding your way of expressing yourself.”
Following Kelly’s toad encounter, wife Candeece bought her a BBC online course run by legendary author Julia Donaldson to help make her picture book dreams a reality.
Donaldson cautioned against rhyming for the sake of it, but Kelly has always had an affinity for the craft.
“If we had school assignments, I would always write a poem, always make it rhyme,” she said.
Publisher Scholastic signing her up was “absolutely a dream-come-true moment,” and bringing her words to life through illustrations was “a really interesting part of the process”.
“Unfortunately, I’m not an author-illustrator, I can’t draw at all!” she laughed.
“They have a stable of illustrators they work with and they’ll pair you up based on what the story’s about and what look they have in mind.”
They linked Kelly with illustrator Natasha Carty, who immediately captured her vision for Gareth.
“I couldn’t believe how eerily close it was to how I’d imagined it,” she said.
“The world she’s created is so rich with detail.”
Like the Wes Anderson films she took inspiration from, Natasha’s images contain hidden details.
“There’s a portrait of my dog and my cat that she snuck in there,” Kelly said.
Kelly would love to write a second Gareth story, but for now, she has two new picture books due for release next year.
The first is about a mule named Julie who wants to join her school gymnastics team.
She took inspiration from the saying ‘as stubborn as a mule’ and riffed on the idea of being both mentally and physically inflexible.
Other characters scoff at Julie’s wild pipe dream, but the book delivers a lesson about subverting stereotypes.
“I think it will be visually very colourful and very funny,” Kelly said.
The second is about a gibbon called Glenda, a world pickleball champion who’s never lost a game.
It’s a tale about losing gracefully, born “very much from personal experience of playing games with my daughter”.
“The story looks at how much you can gain from experiencing a loss,” she said.
“Beyond that, I have a few others in the writing and submission processes.”
