Nicholas Ruddock & Ashley Barron Show Tenderness to Tiny Fragile Snakes, and Other Creatures

It's always fun and insightful to have picture book authors featured on Open Book, but we're doubly lucky today to share this conversation between author Nicholas Ruddock and illustrator Ashley Barron. They're here to discuss their new title, This is a Tiny Fragile Snake (Groundwood Books), a series of fifteen poems that explore close encounters with animals.

From hummingbirds to bears, these poems are all about choosing tender and empathetic ways of responding to animals and wildlife around us. They follow the path of the seasons, culminating in imagined scenes about where these creatures may be on a winter night. 

This is a Tiny Fragile Snake features lively rhyming lines that are simply fun to read. Nicholas Ruddock's poems, inspired by personal experiences, are accompanied by Ashley Barron's cut-paper collage illustrations. The animals are depicted with respectful realism in varied environments that take the reader from country to city, and everywhere between. 

Young animal lovers will be thrilled by this picture book, and we're delighted to share this discussion as part of our KidLit Convos series, in which creators talk to each other about their collaborations.

Ashley Barron:

You’ve written exclusively about and for adults. What prompted you to write poetry for young children?

Nicholas Ruddock:

For many years I’d been writing short, homegrown poems for our family’s amusement. These were comedies for the most part, quick little off-the-cuff poems, imperfect, hardly edited. I saved some of them in a diary where they served as personal memories for events, for holidays. They were more specific than photographs, more self-deprecating. Eventually we became surrounded by grandchildren who shared our sense of humour. So those poems certainly continued. But the children’s fascination for the natural world was so genuine, so keen, so non-tempered by irony, I thought I should let comedy evolve into tenderness. Hence This Is a Tiny Fragile Snake.

AB:

Do you relate to any of the characters in the book? If so, who and in what ways? 

NR:

I relate to them all.  Every incident happened to me or to my wife. This work is not fiction. Although each poem is told from the point of view of a human (adult or child), the creatures are totally themselves. They do not bend their behaviours because of their appearance here. They are independent actors. They might even write their own books about these experiences, for all we know. Ashley’s drawings are great, the ants and wasps and raccoons are alive.  I should add that the hummingbird was the first to arrive in our life, so she holds primary position, I suppose, as the genesis of the project.

AB:

What advice would you give to someone working with a co-creator on a book for the first time?

NR:

My advice would be to find a publisher like Groundwood. I wrote the words, but after that I was liberated from responsibility. Ashley, my co-creator, was chosen for me (I could have quibbled, but why would I, seeing her work) and she proceeded on her own. She has more experience than I. She finished her work with professional skill, aplomb, vision. I was given the chance to review it, and nothing had to be altered. I guess we worked more like a relay team than as a duo, with Ashley carrying the baton home.

Thanks, Groundwood and Open Book, for the chance to reflect on the process.

[editor’s note: now the creators swapped roles, with Nicholas asking Ashley about her experiences]

Nicholas Ruddock:

What do you hope young readers will take away from our book?

Ashley Barron:

I hope young readers will recognize that they are as much a part of the natural world as the non-human creatures in this book. And that human or non-human, we all need and want the same things: good health, good food, freedom to roam and a place to call home, fresh air, fresh water… and a helping hand when we need it the most.

NR:

What are the best, and the toughest, parts of collaborating on books in your opinion?

AB:

One of the poems in this book is about a loon who finds itself trapped in fast-freezing lake ice. I had initially sketched the loon in its iconic black and white markings. Before moving to final art, my editor made a note for me to colour the loon in its winter plumage. Wait a minute…, I remember thinking, loons change colour in the winter?! Why didn’t I know this? And sure enough, after a quick google search, I saw that loons take on the appearance of a completely different species of water fowl in winter. Their beaks turn silver and their feathers change from jet black to brownish grey. All this to say, picture book making is very much a group effort and an extra set of eyes is always a good thing!

NR:

Describe your workflow when making the art for this book.

AB:

I really enjoyed illustrating this book, mainly because all 16 of Nicholas’s poems are standalone stories, with their own unique cast of characters and settings. This meant I didn’t have to fuss over continuity from spread to spread. Once I finished a page, I could tuck it away, clear off my desk and start anew on the next one. I found it refreshing.

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Nicholas Ruddock is a writer and physician whose novels, short stories, and poetry for adults have won multiple prizes in Canada, the UK, and Ireland. Most recently, he has been shortlisted for the CBC Short Story Award. The poems in This Is a Tiny Fragile Snake, his debut children’s book, are inspired by personal experience. He lives in Guelph, Ontario with the artist Cheryl Ruddock, and, very often, with bustling hordes of their children, grandchildren, and dogs.

Ashley Barron’s vibrant cut-paper collage illustrations appear in more than twelve picture books, including Chaiwala! by Priti Maheshwari, My City Speaks by Darren Lebeuf (winner of the Schneider Family Book Award), City Baby by Laurie Elmquist (a Bank Street Best Book of the Year), and Pretty Tricky by Etta Kaner (a Kirkus Best Picture Book and an Outstanding Science Trade Book). Ashley lives with her partner and three cats in Toronto, Ontario.