Want to get to know some of the incredible creative minds behind the Your Next Read junior fiction novels? Read on!
Peter Cheong spent several years in the Australian Army, before he finally decided to pursue his dream of a career in books.
Peter is the illustrator of ‘I’m a Hero Too’, ‘Nothing Alike’ and the ‘Pow Pow Pig’ and ‘Freddie Spector’ series. Peter’s debut book as an author/illustrator, ‘Every Night at Midnight’, was voted CBCA Shadow Judging Winner for Picture Book of the Year in 2024.
He has since released his second author/illustrated book, ‘Where We Can Hear the Giants Sing’, as well as illustrating the junior fiction novel ‘Myra In The Middle’, written by Seetha Dodd, and the non-fiction picture book ‘Through The Darkening Sea’ by Claire Saxby.
Peter lives in Perth (Whadjuk Region), Western Australia, with his very understanding wife, sons, and less understanding cat.
And now Peter is bringing his incredible writing and illustrating talents to ‘A Horse In A Tree’, one of two July 26 titles in the Your Next Read Silver series for readers aged 5-8.
Below is an edited extract from an interview with Peter in episode #8 of the Your Kid’s Next Read podcast Summer Series.
YKNR: When we look at your career and all the things that have you led you to the point where you are now… how do did you go from being in the Australian Army to becoming a children’s author and illustrator?
Peter: ‘I joined the Army when I was 19, and was in the infantry for four years. After that, I had done everything I wanted to do in the Army and I decided I wanted to do something I am passionate about – which was drawing and creating stories.
‘Growing up, I always loved reading and making stories, but I didn’t think I was good enough to pursue it actively as a career. But, after the Army, I decided that was what I wanted to do. So I went to university and studied graphic design and illustration, and then I just sent out my portfolio out to all the publishers in Australia.
‘I eventually got picked up as an illustrator by Penguin [Random House Australia], and illustrated my first picture book with them, and that led to the PowPow Pig series (written by Anh Do), and from that I got an agent and started creating my own stories as well.’
While you were sending out your portfolio and hoping for the best, were you at that stage doing your own little projects as well? How were you developing your style while all that was going on?
Peter: ‘Straight out of uni, I had a student portfolio, which I sent out – and that got rejected all over the place. But I just kept learning – online and YouTube and books – and I kept practising. I sent my portfolio to Sarah Davis, who’s an amazing illustrator, and she kindly wrote back to me with tips on what I could do to improve my portfolio. I was very grateful for that.
‘Eventually, I got bites from several publishers and one of them asked if I had any stories of my own. I was like ‘not yet, but I will send you some straight away’. So in the next three months, I made three picture book dummies – not with the intention of getting them published, but just to show that I could carry a story with visuals.
‘One of those stories, one of the book dummies, was ‘Every Night at Midnight’, which eventually became a book. So it was one of the first books that I ever wrote, which is crazy.’
How do you describe your illustration style?
Peter: ‘I think my illustration style is very narrative. Very story driven. And whimsical, I suppose.’
The picture books that you have illustrated for other people include ‘I’m a Hero Too’ by Jamila Rizvi, and ‘Nothing Alike’ by Zewlan Moor. What do you think it was about those projects that drew you to them?
Peter: ‘I’m a Hero Too’ was the first book that I illustrated so I can’t say I was really driven towards it particularly. It was just my first one, so I was like, ‘yes, please, just give it to me’.
‘But with ‘Nothing Alike’ by Zewlan Moor, I read the text and knew it was important. I also knew I could tell the story well, and that if I didn’t take it then someone else would get it and they might not be have been able to tell it to the way I saw it. I thought that was an important text to do and that’s why I picked that one.’
What made you decide to have a go at writing?
Peter: ‘I’ve always loved writing. I didn’t think I was very good at it in high school, but also, for exams, if there was an option for creative writing then I always wrote a story. That was my favourite part of the exam. I did terribly at the rest of it, but for that creative section I always wrote a story.
‘My intention for my career was to get into books as an illustrator first, and then, when I was established enough, to get into writing books and illustrating them myself. I thought that might be an easier avenue rather than writing first because it’s more competitive – but I always wanted to do my own books from the get go.’
Now that you are doing your own books, how do you decide that an ideas is strong enough for a whole book?
Peter: ‘I come up with an idea and then, if I like it enough, I’ll make it into a book dummy – laying out all the text and roughly drawing all the pages so it looks like a book. To get to that stage, you have to be invested into the story already. So if I’m not invested in it, I just won’t do it.
‘Or I’ll set myself a deadline to get a really rough dummy sorted, and then I’ll complete that. And if I don’t like it, then I’ll just leave it to the side and then I’ll set a new one. So I’ll just make tons and tons of dummies, and then I’ll pick the ones that I’m most drawn to and then build on them and build on them and rewrite and redraw until I’m really happy with the result.’
Your picture book ‘Every Night at Midnight’ was shortlisted for the 2024 CBCA picture book of the year awards, and in fact, won the CBCA shadow judging for that category, which is very exciting. Where did that book come from? Did it start for you with the words or the pictures?
Peter: ‘It came from the line ‘every night at midnight I turn into a wolf’ and I just built on that one line. I asked myself questions like, ‘what would it be like to turn into a wolf’? How would it affect your life? How would it affect your friends? Would you like it? What would you do?
‘It also came from my love of urban fantasy. I read all the urban fantasy books you can think of. I just love that magic in a normal, modern setting. And then I paired that with some of my own experiences growing up – trying to fit in as, as we all do. I think that all like good stories have a bit of the author in them as well.’
One thing that stands out in your illustrative work in both ‘Every Night At Midnight’ and ‘Where We Can Hear Giants Sing‘, is your use of patterns and white space. Where does that come from and what’s the technical term for it?
Peter: ‘I’m not sure there is a technical term for it…white space is usually called negative space. For my work, I try to heavily focus on composition and contrast. It’s always nice to have dark values on light values. So if there’s something I want to pop out, I usually have like a light belly underneath it if it’s dark.
‘So I use these white ‘splotches’ or lines to create contrast and I try to make the textures look like they’re traditional. I’ve done my picture books mostly digitally with traditional textures overlaid on them. So I’ll paint textures on watercolour paper or canvas or something, and then I’ll scan that in and overlay that on my digital art, so it looks traditional.
‘With the whites, I try to use brush strokes rather than digital hard edges. I try to make it look like it’s painterly or like it’s a page crease just to make it more tactile.’
You’ve also illustrated junior fiction series, such as PowPow Pig by Anh Do and Freddie Spector, Fact Collector by Ashleigh Barton. Does a series require a different approach to like a one-off project, like a picture book?
Peter: ‘It does differ – not so much for character continuity because picture books also have a character you have to draw over and over again – because it’s black and white. It’s much faster (for me anyway) to create black-and-white illustrations. And I really enjoy it because I actually really struggle with colour. It takes me so long to get a nice looking colour palette for an illustration – I have no idea what I’m doing and just experiment until it looks half decent.’
Listen to the full interview here.
About ‘A Horse In A Tree’ by Peter Cheong
Do you like SURPRISING STORIES, ADVENTURE and ANIMALS?
Then this book is YOUR NEXT READ.
Sam did the biggest kick anyone has ever seen, and now his football is gone. It’s probably in the big gumtree in the park. But his football isn’t the only thing stuck in the tree …
Buy here from your favourite online retailer
Want to know more about Peter’s work in ‘A Horse In A Tree’ (including )? Watch the video!
