‘Grim, it’s all just so utterly grim,’ Death stared out over the abyss of many furrowed brows. His long, bony fingers tangling and untangling themselves around the cold, gilded railings that bordered the great crevasse.

Those were the first two lines I wrote when, several months ago, myself and Frank first vaunted the idea of writing a children’s picture book inspired by the image above(which in turn was inspired by this cartoon). For a while we discussed the project, and Frank was very keen, but I know absolutely nothing about children’s books. I mean I doubt I even read one when I was a child.

Since then I’ve looked around and found some really nice looking ones – picking up a couple as Christmas presents (seeing as I had to do my own shopping this year). Now there are some really impressive ones, I was particularly taken by the works of Oliver Jeffers, but they are very much about the illustrations. The story is most often simple, a little surreal maybe, told in short easy sentences. That’s not a criticism but it’s just not how I write. Which begs the question (there might be few other issues that prompt this question)- is it really a good idea to write a children’s picture book about Death, the apocalypse, a corpse boy’s struggle to save the world and the life-affirming power of penguins? You just can’t tell that story without using a certain richness in your prose.

I’m thinking, of course, that maybe we’re moving slightly up the age-scale but I don’t want to go too far, it’s still first and foremost a picture book. I just wouldn’t write it as a novel, children’s or otherwise. I’m hoping there’s some sort of precedent because, well, it’s probably going to be difficult enough to sell people on the idea as it stands, without having to argue the toss over the prose style. For my mind, I believe it’s best to introduce children to as full a spectrum of the language as you can, while their minds are still at their most inqusitive. It won’t be too long before they’re too embarrassed to ask the meaning of a word.