HEDDERWICK, Mairi 1939-

PERSONAL: Born May 2, 1939, in Gourock, Renfrew-shire, Scotland; daughter of Douglas Lindsay (an architect) and Margaret (Gallacher) Crawford; married Ronnie Hedderwick, June 24, 1962 (divorced); children: Mark, Tamara. Ethnicity: "Scots." Education: Edinburgh College of Art, Diploma of Art, 1962; Jordanhill College of Education (Glasgow, Scotland), art teaching certificate, 1963; primary teaching certificate, 1981; Stirling University, doctorate, 2003. Hobbies and other interests: House renovation, interior design.

ADDRESSES: Home—Scotland. Agent—Giles Gordon, Curtis Brown Agency, 37 Queensferry St., Edinburgh EH2 4QS, Scotland.

CAREER: Traveling art teacher in Mid Argyll, Scotland, 1962-64; crofter and mother, Isle of Coll, Scotland, 1964-69; Malin Workshop (art stationery, prints), Isle of Coll and Fort William, Scotland, artist, designer, and owner with husband, 1969-80; community cooperatives advisor in Highlands and Islands (based in Inverness), Scotland, 1986-89. Freelance writer, illustrator, and public speaker, 1980—.

AWARDS, HONORS: Souvenirs of Scotland Award, Scottish Design Centre, 1971 and 1974; Smarties Award finalist, for Katie Morag and the Tiresome Ted, 1986; Earthworm Award (with others), Friends of the Earth, 1993, for Venus Peter Saves the Whale.

WRITINGS:

SELF-ILLUSTRATED; FOR CHILDREN

Katie Morag Delivers the Mail (also see below), Bodley Head (London, England), Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1984.

Katie Morag and the Two Grandmothers (also see below), Bodley Head (London, England), Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1985.

Katie Morag and the Tiresome Ted (also see below), Bodley Head (London, England), Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1986.

Katie Morag and the Big Boy Cousins (also see below), Bodley Head (London, England), Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1987.

Peedie Peebles' Summer or Winter Book, Bodley Head (London, England), 1989, published as P. D. Peebles' Summer or Winter Book, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1989.

Katie Morag and the New Pier, Bodley Head (London, England), 1993.

Dreamy Robbie!, Oliver & Boyd (Harlow, England), 1993.

Robbie's First Day at School, Oliver & Boyd (Harlow, England), 1993.

Robbie's Trousers, Oliver & Boyd (Harlow, England), 1993.

Robbie and Grandpa, Oliver & Boyd (Harlow, England), 1994.

Robbie's Birthday, Oliver & Boyd (Harlow, England), 1994.

Peedie Peebles' Colour Book, Bodley Head (London, England), 1994, published as Oh No, Peedie Peebles!, Red Fox (London, England), 1997.

(Reteller) The Tale of Carpenter MacPheigh: A Scottish Folk Tale, Blackie (London, England), 1994.

Katie Morag and the Wedding, Bodley Head (London, England), 1995.

Katie Morag's Island Stories, (includes Katie Morag Delivers the Mail, Katie Morag and the Two Grandmothers, Katie Morag and the Tiresome Ted, and Katie Morag and the Big Boy Cousins), Bodley Head (London, England), 1995.

The Big Katie Morag Storybook, Bodley Head (London, England), 1996.

Katie Morag and the Grand Concert, Bodley Head (London, England), 1997.

The Second Katie Morag Storybook, Bodley Head (London, England), 1998.

Katie Morag's Rainy Day Book, Bodley Head (London, England), 1999.

Katie Morag and the Riddles, Bodley Head (London, England), 2001.

A Walk with Grannie, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 2003.

SELF-ILLUSTRATED; FOR ADULTS

Mairi Hedderwick's Views of Scotland, Famedram (Gartocharn, Scotland), 1981.

An Eye on the Hebrides: An Illustrated Journey, Canongate (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1989.

Highland Journey: A Sketching Tour of Scotland Retracing the Footsteps of Victorian Artist John T. Reid, Canongate (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1992.

Seachange: The Summer Voyage from East to West Scotland of the Anassa, Canongate (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1999.

ILLUSTRATOR

Rumer Godden, The Old Woman Who Lived in a Vinegar Bottle, Macmillan (London, England), Viking (New York, NY), 1972.

Jane Duncan, Herself and Janet Reachfar, Macmillan (London, England), 1975, published as Brave Janet Reachfar, Seabury Press (New York, NY), 1975, reprinted, Birlinn (Edinburgh, Scotland), 2003.

Jane Duncan, Janet Reachfar and the Kelpie, Macmillan (London, England), Seabury Press (New York, NY), 1976, reprinted, Birlinn (Edinburgh, Scotland), 2003.

E. R. Taylor, The Gifts of the Tarns, Collins (London, England), 1977.

Jane Duncan, Janet Reachfar and Chickabird, Macmillan (London, England), Seabury Press (New York, NY), 1978.

(With others) Enid Fairhead, editor, The Book of Bedtime Stories, Collins (London, England), 1979.

Wendy Body, A Cat Called Rover; A Dog Called Smith, Longman (Harlow, England), 1981.

Anne Wood and Ann Pilling, editors, Our Best Stories, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1986.

Moira Miller, Hamish and the Wee Witch, Methuen (London, England), 1986.

Alexander Maclean, The Haggis, State Mutual Book & Periodical Service (Bridgehampton, NY), 1987.

Jamie Fleeman's Country Cookbook, State Mutual Book & Periodical Service (Bridgehampton, NY), 1987.

Alan Keegan, Scotch in Miniature, revised edition, State Mutual Book & Periodical Service (Bridgehampton, NY), 1987.

Moira Miller, Hamish and the Fairy Gifts, Methuen (London, England), 1988.

Moira Miller, Meet Maggie McMuddle, Methuen (London, England), 1990.

Beverley Mathias, editor, The Spell Singers and Other Stories, Blackie (London, England), 1990.

Christopher Rush, Venus Peter Saves the Whale, Canongate (Edinburgh, Scotland), Pelican (Gretna, LA), 1992.

Joan Lingard, Hands Off Our School!, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1992.

Tom Pow, Callum's Big Day, Inyx (Aberdour, Scotland), 2000.

Also illustrator of Hamish and the Fairy Bairn, 1989, and A Kist of Whistles, 1990, both written by Moira Miller.

ADAPTATIONS: Some of Hedderwick's works are in progress of being animated.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Katie Morag's Birthday Book; illustrations for Hebridean Diary.

SIDELIGHTS: Mairi Hedderwick, is, according to Ann Fotheringham in the Glasgow Evening Times, "one of Scotland's best-loved authors and illustrators." Her perceptive depictions of Scottish island life have found a wide audience in Great Britain, the United States, and Scandinavia. Hedderwick has illustrated works by other children's writers, but she is best known for her own picture books. Most of these feature Katie Morag, a youngster growing up on an island in the Hebrides. The author told Horn Book: "When I started creating the Katie Morag books, there were very few books about, and for, Scottish children by Scottish authors. This may sound a trifle chauvinistic, but it is pleasing to see that the major publishers are more aware of the demand. . . . I have been very lucky; I had little restriction put on my expression of my culture." Hedderwick, who is also a well-known travel writer, finds when she is touring for her adult books, that "Katie Morag is all people want to hear about," as the author told Fotheringham. "I know I can't stop writing about her." Hedderwick has second-generation readers now following the exploits of her plucky island lass, and the Morag tales have even been included in the school curriculum in England.

Hedderwick was born and raised in Scotland, the granddaughter of a missionary to Africa. Both her grandfather and her father painted, so her own artistic ambitions were encouraged at home and at school. Hedderwick told Horn Book that, although her economic circumstances were comfortable during childhood, she felt emotionally deprived. "I had a mother who did not show much affection," she said. "I do not have any memories of being held or cuddled by her. . . . I was an only child. My father was often ill with 'nerves', as it used to be called. He died when I was thirteen. That may be why I became a children's writer and illustrator—perhaps I am still trying to find that lost childhood."

As a youngster, Hedderwick discovered a book in which the children went to an island in the Hebrides. The description of that region's beauty filled her with a longing she never quite forgot. "I wanted with all my heart to go to that island and sail on that sea," she told Horn Book. First, however, came attendance at an all-girls' school in nearby Kilmacolm. As the school was both a day- and boarding-school, Hedderwick, a day student, experienced "snobbery and discrimination" from the girls who were boarding there, as she noted in an interview with a contributor to the Scotsman of Edinburgh. She had to travel by bus each day to catch a train for the school, and dressed in her school uniform, she also stood out among the working-class passengers. Caught between two worlds, she "did not like school very much," as she went on to observe in the Scotsman. "I was excruciatingly shy and, as I grew older, covered up this misery by appearing confident. This ploy was not in my interest and I came over as being superior." She did have some favorite teachers, however, including a piano instructor with whom she could relax. Art and music were her strongest subjects, but English was not a strong suit. She "had no confidence at all in writing," as she noted in the Scotsman. Neither was she much good at mathematics. At this time in her life, she wanted to be a missionary like her grandfather but soon that was displaced by her love of art.

Hedderwick attended Edinburgh College of Art from 1957 until 1961. "That was the first liberating experience of my life," she recalled for her Scotsman interview. "There was no snobbery whatsoever. It was a fantastic experience." Thereafter she earned a teaching certificate from Jordanhill College of Education and served as a traveling art teacher in several Scottish villages and married in 1962. For slightly more than a year she and her husband worked together on a dairy farm, then they moved to the Hebridean Isle of Coll. There they lived "in splendid isolation," as she noted in Horn Book, in an old farmhouse at the end of a beach. Hedderwick found they could support themselves by manufacturing postcards of Coll and neighboring islands better than struggling by working the croft.

"We started with a hand duplicator because there was no electricity on the island, and we made island map postcards of the West Coast," the author told Horn Book. "We churned out sixty-five thousand postcards in one season. . . . We expanded the range of stationery products and prints from my sketching tours on other islands and the mainland of Scotland. Our two small children had plenty of scrap paper to be creative with!"

When their two children became old enough to attend secondary school, Hedderwick and her husband reluctantly left Coll for the mainland town of Fort William. By that time, Hedderwick had begun to illustrate children's books by other authors. Her book illustrating career began with The Old Woman Who Lived in a Vinegar Bottle by Rumer Godden. Hedderwick was selected from a group of other beginning illustrators in a contest arranged by the well-known author Godden, who wanted to give new illustrators a hand up in the industry. Subsequently Hedderwick illustrated several "Janet Reachfar" books by Jane Duncan, including Herself and Janet Reachfar, Janet Reachfar and the Kelpie, and Janet Reachfar and Chickabird. As a contributor for Children's Books and Their Creators noted, "Hedderwick's impressionistic watercolors bring to life the Highlands farm setting of these warm family stories." These tales also gave Hedderwick experience in illustrating a sprightly young girl who lives surrounded by adults. With the death of Duncan, Hedderwick was encouraged to develop books of her own which feature just such a spunky young heroine. In the mid-1980s, now living in Inverness, Hedderwick began to write and illustrate her own books, featuring island-dwelling Katie Morag and her family.

The series began with Katie Morag Delivers the Mail, which introduces the red-haired protagonist and her family, who run the post office and shop on the Scottish island of Struay. The story is based on the life Hedderwick and her family lived on the island of Coll. The author/illustrator details very closely the island life and the life of young Katie Morag McColl. Removed from the mainland, the island has mail and goods delivered three times a week, weather permitting, and Katie's life is equally removed from the hurly-burly of the modern world. Katie's grandmother is usually dressed in dungarees and indulges in such unfeminine behavior as fixing the family tractor. Katie Morag is blessed—sometimes she feels cursed—with two grandmothers: one on the mainland whom she calls Granma and is appropriately grandmotherly and urbane, and one on the island, dubbed Grannie Island, who keeps young Katie in line.

Hedderwick's books chronicle life on Struay, and it is anything but dull or typical as Katie's mother runs the post office while her dad wins prizes for his baking and Grannie Island lumbers about in rubber boots and overalls and operates her croft on her own. Katie's adventures are further illustrated in Katie Morag and the Two Grandmothers, which brings to center stage the differences between these two relatives. In Katie Morag and the Tiresome Ted, the young girl takes out her frustrations and jealousy over the arrival of a new baby by repeatedly throwing her favorite teddy bear into the ocean. Katie Morag and the Big Boy Cousins introduces more of the extended family and their amazement with Katie's tomboyish behavior. In Katie Morag and the New Pier, the construction of a pier brings new guests to the island.

The "Katie Morag" books have been praised for their strong sense of place, their non-sexist role models, and their sensitive exploration of everyday life in Scotland. Reviewers have also commended Hedderwick for her artwork featured in the series. A critic for Twentieth-Century Children's Writers commented that "the success of the illustrations lies in the minute detail so beloved by children—the animals wreaking unseen havoc, the clutter of goods on the shelves of the shops, and the bustling, everyday life of the community."

Further tales of life on Struay are served up in Katie Morag and the Wedding, which again features Katie's two grandmothers. There is a wedding for one while the other temporarily reconnects with an estranged husband. "The charm of the story, however," noted Celia Gibbs in School Librarian, "is in the pictures." More of Katie's relations turn up in Katie Morag and the Grand Concert, in which identical twin uncles, Uncle Sven and Uncle Sean, who also happen to be world-famous musicians, visit the island and participate in a concert. Katie is also going to take part and practices a song endlessly. However, on the big night, Katie sees a friend sitting in the front, wearing the same dress as she. This throws her off momentarily, and she runs back stage where she finds that Uncle Sven who has lost his voice and is suffering similar distress. "Fans of Katie Morag will be delighted to see a new book in the series," thought Prue Goodwin in a School Librarian review of the title. Kate Kellaway, writing in the London Observer, called the same book "merry and vital," with illustrations "as much of a delight as ever." Similarly, Lindsey Fraser, writing in Books for Keeps about Katie Morag and the Grand Concert, felt that, "as in all Hedderwick's books, the illustrative detail is exquisite."

With her 2001 title, Katie Morag and the Riddles, Hedderwick presents her heroine at school and sick of having to help the younger children. She likes her time much better at home, where she dresses up in her mother's clothes and jewelry. But such delight is spoiled when Katie accidentally breaks one of her mother's necklaces; she tries to make up for this by putting out extra effort while at school. Her penance includes helping the other children to solve various riddles the teacher gives them. "The riddles are part of the fun of the story," wrote Wendy Axford in a School Librarian review of the title. Axford went on to praise the "delightful illustrations of island life."

Katie is also featured in story and poem collections, including The Big Katie Morag Storybook and The Second Katie Morag Storybook. In the first title, Katie is busy acting as mediator between her two grandmothers or becoming a friend to a seal, in a work that displays "the author's obvious love of the island," according to Marie Imeson, writing in School Librarian. A critic for Publishers Weekly commended Hedderwick's "cheerful, lively cartoon illustrations," as did a reviewer for Junior Bookshelf, who found them "superb." Writing in Books for Keeps, Gwynneth Bailey thought that The Second Katie Morag Storybook was "a magical collection of stories and poems to pore over."

More island fare is provided in Katie Morag's Rainy Day Book, as well as books for toddlers featuring Peedie Peebles, including Peedie Peebles' Summer or Winter Book and Peedie Peebles' Colour Book. Hedderwick also deals in non-series picture books, such as The Tale of Carpenter MacPheigh: A Scottish Folk Tale, and has continued to occasionally do illustrations for other authors, including her award-winning artwork for Christopher Rush's ecological parable, Venus Peter Saves the Whale.

"I'd like to think that all my work is more than pretty pictures," Hedderwick told Horn Book. "My children's books all have, at base, a moral message. That must be the missionary grandfather emerging from me. I would never lose the message of a story by hiding it behind a really gorgeous picture. For young children art appreciation is way down the line—the story and the characters are paramount." At the same time, the author notes, illustrations are crucial to the formation of young imaginations. "Illustrations in books are often the first place a small child sees and learns about what is beyond its own experience," she concluded. "That is a big responsibility!"

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Kingman, Lee, and others, compilers, Illustrators of Children's Books: 1967-1976, Horn Book (Boston, MA), 1978.

St. James Guide to Children's Writers, 5th edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1999.

Silvey, Anita, editor, Children's Books and Their Creators, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1995, p. 301.

Twentieth-Century Children's Writers, 3rd edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1989.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 1992, p. 1766.

Books for Keeps, November, 1997, Lindsey Fraser, review of Katie Morag and the Grand Concert, p. 20; September, 1998, Gwynneth Bailey, review of The Second Katie Morag Storybook, p. 21; November, 1999, review of Katie Morag and the Grand Concert, p. 18.

Children's Literature in Education, Volume 22, number 1, 1991.

Evening Times (Glasgow, Scotland), June 12, 2003, Ann Fotheringham, "Katie Morag Up for More Mischief; Mairi Hedderwick," p. 26.

Horn Book, September-October, 1984, pp. 580-581; May-June, 1985, pp. 316-317; July-August, 1989, pp. 474-475; March-April, 1990, Mairi Hedderwick, "The Artist at Work: A Sense of Place," pp. 171-177.

Junior Bookshelf, December, 1996, review of The Big Katie Morag Storybook, pp. 252-253.

Library Journal, March 15, 2000, John Kenny, review of Sea Change, p. 117.

New York Times Book Review, February 15, 1987, p. 41.

Observer (London, England), July, 20, 1997, Kate Kellaway, review of Katie Morag and the Grand Concert, p. 18.

Publishers Weekly, April 29, 1988, p. 75; May 12, 1989, p. 289; November 25, 1996, review of The Big Katie Morag Storybook, p. 77.

School Librarian, May, 1995, Sybil Hannavy, review of The Tale of Carpenter MacPheigh: A Scottish Folk Tale, p. 59; August, 1995, Celia Gibbs, review of Katie Morag and the Wedding, p. 103; November, 1996, Marie Imeson, review of The Big Katie Morag Storybook, p. 146; November, 1997, Prue Goodwin, review of Katie Morag and the Grand Concert, p. 186; autumn, 1999, Liz Dubber, review of Katie Morag's Rainy Day Book, p. 130; autumn, 2001, Wendy Axford, review of Katie Morag and the Riddles, p. 131.

School Library Journal, October, 1984, p. 147; May, 1986, p. 75; December, 1986, p. 88; September, 1987, p. 163; July, 1989, p. 66.

Scotsman (Edinburgh, Scotland), April 16, 2003, "My Schooldays: Mairi Hedderwick Finally Finding Her True Voice," p. 13.

Sunday Times (London, England), November 7, 1994, Mairi Hedderwick, "Search for Grandfather's Soul," p. 4; March 19, 2001, Mairi Hedderwick, "Escape: Time Off," p. 10.

Times Educational Supplement, September 9, 1984, p. 20; September 2, 1994, p. 29; July 10, 1998, p. 13.*