Dubai
A two-year-old visited a public library with his mother. When he chanced upon the picture books section, the boy reached out for Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak and that sparked his love of reading.
This is the story of Curtis Jobling, a British illustrator, animator and author. When speaking to Gulf News on the sidelines of an event organised by the Emirates Literature Foundation in Dubai, Jobling spoke of how he distinctly remembers “visiting the land of the wild things” every time his father read the story.
He said: “Once the door would shut, the shadows on the wall would slowly metamorphosise. That’s how vivid my imagination was. I used to visit the library every weekend. The librarians were the gatekeepers and they are still my favourite people.”
When he was a little older, Jobling came across The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien and he has “never looked back” since. His interest in fantasy combined with his love for comics, which led to his career as an illustrator.
He said: “I was always interested in comic books and cartoons as a child. That was my first introduction to digital storytelling. It put me on that path, and I wanted to pursue it as a career. I went to art college to study illustration and then went into the animation industry.”
His favourite comic?
The Walking Dead, he said with a smile. When asked about children’s reading habits, he expressed his disappointment over computer and smartphones taking over. The popularity of video games is distracting children, in his opinion. But, they can be brought back to the hobbit using the secret ingredient — picture books.
He said: “Illustrated books and comics are a gateway to get them into reading chapter books and novels. I’ve got friends, who are novelists today, who wouldn’t read anything when they were 10 years old, apart from comics. And that’s what got them to reading novels later. Pictorial storytelling was a great way to hook them in with the visuals. I didn’t need to go see the Lord of the Rings movies, even though I enjoyed them, to know what The Shire looked like. I had visited Hobbiton when I was reading the books as a child. The imagination is a wonderful thing.”
Fiona Cottam, principal and chief academic officer at the Hartland International School, agreed. Jobling was at the school conducting a workshop, recently, as part of an initiative by the Emirates Literature Foundation.
Cottam said that illustrations capture children’s imagination and “draws them in”. In her opinion, knowing what the characters look like would keep children engaged.
“You don’t realise you are reading as much as you are with picture books. Reading them is about hearing the words, looking at the pictures and helping your imagination grow. It’s also about parents encouraging the habit of reading by reading with and to their children. There should be the traditional bedtime story and we need to make sure that books are accessible at home. In school, we also have to create a culture of reading. It improves writing and all forms of literacy,” she concluded.