Ever met a celebrity lion? What about a body building gorilla, fashion designing lizard or a troupe of freedom fighting acrobatic rats?

Neither had little Gertrude sparrow until her world was turned up side down.

Come on a wild, action-packed ride as Gertrude sets off on a perilous journey to find the things that matter most: family, good friends and a place where you truly belong.

We have always loved children’s books, both for their stories and their art.

Each elevates the other and there are some examples that are truly sublime (see the work of Kit Williams, Tove Jansson, Shaun Tan or Maurice Sendak for starters).

After a certain age, pictures disappear from children’s books and children’s exposure to visual art becomes narrowed because of it.

Somehow pictures in books are seen as lesser. We don’t think so (you may have guessed we are also huge graphic novel fans too).

We wanted to keep the art in a longer form children’s book and with this in mind we started work on Gertrude. Everything we do starts with story, but it was equally important to us that we created art that was as bold, impactful and engaging as the story.

The words and images needed to strike a beautiful balance. It was also crucial to us that the language be playful and highly visual. The story had to be authentic and ring true.

Creating the artwork was the next step. Each character was hand drawn, then scanned and traced and finally constructed using photos of textures to create a digital collage.

Photographic textures included: concrete walls, rusted metal, wood, marble, leaves and roughly 500 other texture images.

Some of the characters include over 100 different photographs, but we think the final result speaks for itself.

The book was designed by award-winning graphic designer Sean Hogan of Trampoline Design, whose masterful typography added another dimension to the words and art.

We love this book and we hope you do too.

Gertrude, is a book for kids aged 8 and up.