The Ruby Winkle Review
Trained as an industrial designer, author and illustrator Thomas Aquinas Maguire understands the nature of good design and designs beautifully surreal scenes of nature in his books. Maguire’s quiet narrative, A Growling Place, follows the adventure of a young girl who looses her teddy bear and finds her voice against a snarling bunch of bullies. A Growling Place is haunted by an atmosphere of dreams where foes become friends and sparrows are silent guides. Each creature breathes beneath tangible textures and tea stained accents. Maguire’s characters are a gentler evolution of Bosch’s fierce species that leap off the page and vibrantly speak with little text. Maquire continues to dream in his upcoming book, Three Little Dreams.
For a full length author-interview with Thomas check out:
http://rubywinkle.wordpress.com/2009/09/27/thomas-aquinas-maguire/
Resource Links
"This is an intriguing little book that contains much more than appears at first glance. The story is simple - a young girl's teddy bear is caught up by the wind and blows throughout the night. Aril follows her teddy and ends up meeting real bears who try to scare her. Aril doesn't let them, however, and in fact, teaches them not to be such bullies. The story ends with Aril, asleep in bed, an array of small teddy bears in a corner of her room. This is a sweet dream story.
It is the details that make this book worth a second, third and forth look. Open the rectangular front cover and an unusual end paper greets you. Shades of checkered gray, overlaid with the scratched out title of the book, and in one corner, a brown and tan bear, being tossed through the sky, invite you into the story.
The entire book contains six sentences and seems aimed at a very young audience, but their is much potential here for an older one!
The Table of Contents is an unusual touch, consisting of emphasized words from the six sentences and a perfect invitation to have a conversation about what a Table of Contents is for. The very detailed and imaginative illustrations, enlarged on a projector, lead to conversations about illustrator's vision, drawing styles, bullying, and writing simple stories.
This little book could be used by teachers throughout the elementary years, as well as being a great book for parent and child cuddle times. Thematic Links: Dreams
- Susan Miller
CM Magazine
"... Maguire is obviously a gifted artist. The minimal, alliterative storyline is nicely presented with font and colour changes, but it serves primarily as a vehicle for the wonderful dark line drawings that evoke Sendak. These are very active images that advance the narrative in the absence of text. Aril in her bright pink dress stands out in the muted tones of the landscape, and there are lots of details to find in the evocative manga-inspired illustrations: both the sparrow and Aril tiptoe toward the bear’s cave; Aril’s hair droops when the bears are bullying her and stands straight up when she calls them on their bullying; the bears are suitably pathetic in their remorse. I particularly like that the bear’s toenails hang over the edge of the image frame."
Cynsations Author-Illustrator Interview: Thomas Aquinas Maguire on A Growling Place, April 24, 2008
CS: Could you tell us about your apprenticeship as a writer and an illustrator? How did you come to each? Where did you study and/or otherwise develop your skills?
TAM: I was professionally trained as an Industrial Designer at RIT in Rochester, New York. At the end of my second year of study, I found myself working as an intern toy designer for Fisher-Price. I absolutely loved it. I focused the remaining two years of my studies at RIT towards toward a career in toy design, and upon graduation, I flew across the ocean to Denmark and got a job with LEGO.
In Denmark, I had a lot of time to myself, I used this time to educate myself in picture book creation and spent almost every evening drawing, writing, and imagining.
CS: Congratulations on the release of A Growling Place! Could you tell us a little about the book?
TAM: A Growling Place is my first picture book. It's about nighttime and tea, wind gusts and windows, feathers, birds, blankets, bears, bedtime and a little girl named Aril who befriends all of these things.
CS: What was your initial inspiration?
TAM: I would have to say loneliness--and I don't mean that in a sad way. To an imaginative mind, loneliness can be a great collaborator. I remember most of my childhood being in the company of my brother and sisters, but I also clearly remember (especially before my little brother roommate was born) the lonely and imaginative moments before sleep.
The isolation that I experienced in Denmark evoked those same quiet imaginative moments familiar from childhood. Loneliness became a great friend to me, and, in many ways, A Growling Place is about just that.
CS: What was the timeline between spark and publication, and what were the major events along the way?
TAM: It took about three years from the very first sketch to the publication of A Growling Place. I had actually just abandoned my very first attempt at a picture book manuscript called "Cricket Nights." I began A Growling Place by experimenting with a new technique using tea washes and graphite crosshatching in my sketchbook. Some of the colors in the first illustration from A Growling Place are actually painted with tea!
While living in Europe, I had the opportunity to expose myself to children's literature history. I studied the work of my favorite illustrators from childhood, including of course, Maurice Sendak and Edward Gorey. I traveled and saw some original Beatrix Potter drawings in London. With my aunt, I visited the home of the Grimm brothers in Kassel. On my days off from work I would visit Hans Christian Andersen's birthplace in Odense.
After each trip, I'd settle back in at home with some tea and continue work on A Growling Place. It was probably one of the healthiest environments I could've been in at the time. Surrounded by the work of these storytellers, I went home each night and put their teaching to use.
A little bit later, I made the decision to move back to the U.S. and completed the rest of A Growling Place at my parents home in Rochester. They were wonderful to give me the whole downstairs to set up a little studio and get the thing finished!
I printed five sample books and sent them to some people that I thought would be interested. Dimiter at Simply Read Books gave me a call, and we pulled it all together with a great cover, a striking long format, and a beautifully crafted half cloth book construction. Simply Read Books did such a good job with it.
CS: What were the challenges (literary, artistic, research, psychological, and logistical) in bringing it to life?
TAM: In the early stages of the book's creation, I was diagnosed with an eye disease called Keratoconus. The disease affects the rigidity of the corneal tissue--the cornea loses the perfection of its shape and vision is blurred. My right eye began to lose it's precision and continues to... This became a problem with some of the detail work that went into the illustrations.
The other challenge that I consistently find with creation is sustaining a mood. Before I can begin working on an established project, my mood must match the spirit of the book. This, at times, can be a great stumbling block, especially if the project stretches over years--as A Growling Place did.
Music helps me to find, sustain and revisit a mood. This is why I'll sometimes spend whole evenings searching for perfect music. Sometimes, though, even with music, it can take me hours to transform my mindset.
CS: If you could go back and talk to yourself when you were beginning author-illustrator, what advice would you offer?
TAM: I'm not sure that I would. I feel that my motivations and methods for A Growling Place were right-on. If I had to translate the most important of my realizations from those three years into a piece of advice it would be this:
"Create work that you believe in: work that you want to see and that you believe is worth making. Completing a work that you truly respect is a greater reward than gaining the respect of others or finding publication."
CS: What do you do when you're not in the book world?
TAM: If I'm not at work, I usually have books or drawing on my mind, so this is a tough one. Sometimes I'll just sit in my chair and listen to music, or sit in my chair and think about things. I spend a lot of time boiling water and drinking tea--an almost unhealthy quantity of tea. I've also been very fond of my bicycle recently. Looking out of the window with a blanket is another favorite past-time. Video gaming is my guilty hobby.
CS: What can your fans look forward to next?
TAM: I've been working on a few new books. One is complete, one is nearly complete and the other is very young. In August, there should be a nice set of little companion stories for A Growling Place. After that you can expect something much different.
