Harvey, Roland 1945-

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Harvey, Roland 1945-

Personal

Born December 11, 1945, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; son of Herbert Bruce (a graphic artist) and Eveline Anne (a graphic artist) Harvey; married Rona Judith Sharpe (a teacher and astrologer), 1977; children: Sally Christina, Timothy Piers, Roland James, Sara Jane. Education: Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, B.S. (environmental science), 1974, studied architecture, 1973-77. Politics: "Green." Hobbies and other interests: Cooking, music, physical exercise.

Addresses

Home—Kew, Victoria, Australia.

Career

Worked as a cadet executive for a corporation in Victoria, Australia, 1964-68; affiliated with Colonial Sugar Refining Co., Victoria, 1968-72; Roland Harvey Studios/The Five Mile Press, Collingwood, Victoria, managing director, 1977-90; Roland Harvey Studios/The Periscope Press, Hawthorn, Victoria, managing director, beginning 1991; writer and illustrator; speaker at conferences.

Member

Black and White Illustrators Club, Icicles Ski Club, Gippsland Lakes Yacht Club.

Awards, Honors

Commendation, Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA), 1984, and shortlisted for best picture story book, Young Australians Best Book Award Council, 1986, both for The Friends of Emily Culpepper; Clifton Pugh Award, CBCA, and Junior Book of the Year Award shortlist, CBCA, both 1986, both for Burke and Wills; Children's Picture Book of the Year finalist, and Honour Book designation, both CBCA, both 1989, both for My Place in Space; Wilderness Society Environment Award, 1999, for Islands in My Garden; Eve Pownall Award for Information Books shortlist, CBCA, 2001, for Sick As; Children's Book of the Year Awards shortlist in Picture-Book Category, Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year shortlist for Best Book for Language Development, and APA Book Design Award for Children's Picture Book, all 2005, all for At the Beach.

Writings

SELF-ILLUSTRATED

Roland Harvey's Book of Christmas, Five Mile Press (Canterbury, Victoria, Australia), 1982.

Roland Harvey's First Ever Book of Things to Make and Do, Roland Harvey Studios, 1982.

Roland Harvey's Second Ever Book of Things to Make and Do, Roland Harvey Studios, 1983.

Roland Harvey's Incredible Book of Almost Everything, Five Mile Press (Canterbury, Victoria, Australia), 1985.

Burke and Wills, Five Mile Press (Canterbury, Victoria, Australia), 1985.

Roland Harvey's New Book of Christmas, Five Mile Press (Canterbury, Victoria, Australia), 1986.

Roland Harvey's Only Joking Take-Away Fun Book!, Ashton Scholastic, 1987.

The Real Me Book, Five Mile Press (Canterbury, Victoria, Australia), 1989.

(With Scott Riddle) Crisis on Christmas Eve, Periscope Press, 1991.

Roland Harvey's Drawing Book, Scholastic Australia (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia), 1996.

The Secret Record of Me, Roland Harvey Books (Port Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 1997.

At the Beach: Postcards from Crabby Spit, Allen & Unwin (Crows Nest, New South Wales, Australia), 2004.

Outlaws of the World, National Museum of Australia (Canberra, Australia Capital Territory, Australia), 2004.

In the Bush: Our Holiday at Wombat Flat, Allen & Unwin (Crows Nest, New South Wales, Australia), 2005.

ILLUSTRATOR

Lorraine Milne, The Fix-It Man: Songs for Schools, Macmillan, 1979.

Michael Dugan, compiler, More Stuff and Nonsense, Collins, 1980.

Alan Boardman, Eureka Stockade, Five Mile Press (Canterbury, Victoria, Australia), 1981.

Alan Boardman, The First Fleet, Five Mile Press (Canterbury, Victoria, Australia), 1982.

Jean Chapman, The Great Candle Scandal, Hodder & Stoughton, 1982.

Ann Coleridge, The Friends of Emily Culpepper, Five Mile Press (Canterbury, Victoria, Australia), 1983, Putnam (New York, NY), 1987.

Alan Boardman, The Crossing of the Blue Mountains, Five Mile Press (Canterbury, Victoria, Australia), 1984, reprinted, Scholastic (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia), 1997.

Alan Boardman, Great Events in Australia's History, Five Mile Press (Canterbury, Victoria, Australia), 1985.

Jim Converse, The Book of Australian Trivia, Five Mile Press (Canterbury, Victoria, Australia), 1985.

Nette Hilton, Dirty Dave the Bushranger, Five Mile Press (Canterbury, Victoria, Australia), 1987, published as Dirty Dave, Orchard Books (New York, NY), 1990.

(With Joe Levine) Robin Hirst and Sally Hirst, My Place in Space, Five Mile Press (Canterbury, Victoria, Australia), 1988, Orchard Books (New York, NY), 1990.

Marcia Vaughan, Milly Fitzwilly's Mousecatcher, Periscope Press, 1991.

Jim Howes, Islands in My Garden, Roland Harvey Books (Port Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 1998.

Cathy Dodson, Bass and Flinders, Scholastic (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia), 1999.

Nette Hilton, What's a Bunyip?, Roland Harvey Books (Port Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 1999.

Gwenda Smyth, The Six Wonders of Wobbly Bridge, Roland Harvey Books (Port Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 1999.

Kate Ryan, Belvedere Dreaming, Roland Harvey Books (Port Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 2000.

Gael Jennings, Sick As: Bloody Moments in the History of Medicine, Roland Harvey Books (Port Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 2000, published as Bloody Moments: Highlights from the Astonishing History of Medicine, Annick Press (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2000.

Kate Ryan, Belvedere in the City, Roland Harvey Books (Port Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 2000.

Kay Keck and Denise Phillips, Heritage Masks, Scholastic Australia (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia), 2001.

Vashti Farrer, Letters Back Home: A Play, Pearson Educational (South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 2002.

Kate Ryan, Belvedere Is Beached, Puffin (Camberwell, Victoria, Australia), 2002.

Michelle Schwarz, The Super Sailing Sea Restaurant, Viking (Camberwell, Victoria, Australia, 2002, published as The Best Restaurant in the World,, Dutton (New York, NY), 2004.

Mary Small, The Monster Hole, Puffin (Camberwell, Victoria, Australia), 2003.

Pam Harvey, Climbing Mount Sugarbin, Puffin (Camberwell, Victoria, Australia), 2003.

Alison Lester, Bonnie & Sam: The Circus Pony Brumby, Allen & Unwin (Crows Nest, New South Wales, Australia), 2007.

Alison Lester, Bonnie & Sam: The Shadow Brumby, Allen & Unwin (Crows Nest, New South Wales, Australia), 2007.

Sidelights

Humor is the main ingredient in the stories and illustrations of Roland Harvey. Trained as an architect, Harvey has won a popular following among young readers in his native Australia due to the detailed art work he contributes to texts by authors such as Gael Jennings, Allan Boardman, Alison Lester, and Nette Hilton. A history buff, Harvey delights in capturing the attention of young readers with historically accurate visual details, bringing readers back to the nineteenth century in his art for Boardman's Eureka Stockade and The Voyage of the First Fleet, and creating shivers of delight through his deliciously gross art for Jennings' Sick As: Bloody Moments in the History of Medicine. Often compared to the work of Quentin Blake and Babette Cole, Harvey's "whimsical" drawings also appear alongside those of fellow illustrator Joe Levine in My Place in Space, a guide to the solar system by coauthors Robin and Sally Hirst that a Publishers Weekly reviewer praised as "instructive and entertaining." In addition to children's books, Harvey's art has also appeared on calendars and greeting cards.

Moving from fact to fancy, Harvey has also illustrated a number of fanciful stories, such as Scott Riddle's Crisis on Christmas Eve, Michelle Schwartz's The Best Restaurant in the World, and Hilton's Dirty Dave. Crisis on Christmas Eve finds a red-faced Santa Claus stranded in Australia on the BIG DAY when his reindeer go on strike, until the helpful residents of Green's Station do what it takes to keep Christmas Day fun for all. An outback vagabond cashes in on a dark and horribly embarrassing family secret—his dear old dad designs and sews each of his stylish outlaw outfits—in Dirty Dave. Published in Australia as The Super Sailing Sea Restaurant, The Best Restaurant in the World features a floating café where candy, gum, and other yummy treats replace far-more-sensible—and unpleasantly healthy—ingredients on the menu. Dubbing The Best Restaurant in the World a "madcap book that's packed with kid appeal," Bina Williams wrote in School Library Journal that Harvey's "wacky" pen-and-ink and watercolor art brings to life his "frothy, exuberant tale," while Booklist contributor Julie Cummins cited the picture book's "wispy watercolors" and "clever, imaginative" story. In similar fashion, Dirty Dave was praised by a Publishers Weekly critic for featuring "quirky, intricately detailed" illustrations "full of sly humor," while Magpies contributor Cathryn Crowe heralded Crisis on Christmas Eve as a "highly original and hilarious offering which will give young readers hours of pleasure."

Harvey allows his imagination—and his sense of whimsy—full rein when pairing his drawings with an original text, as he does in the picture books At the Beach: Postcards from Crabby Spit and In the Bush: Our Holiday at Wombat Flat. At the Beach pairs busy illustrations with a text that reads like a series of postcards. With each turn of the page, readers are increasingly caught up in the adventures of Franky as he describes to his Grandma the fun he has swimming, surfing, making bonfires, and crabbing, while also casually mentioning vacation highlights that involve such tantalizing things as UFO sightings and falling bird poo. Another family jaunt inspires another sequence of correspondence, this time as Franky and family venture into the Australia outback, with its desert terrain, interesting animals, erratic weather, campfire stories, and more. In a Kirkus Reviews appraisal, a critic described

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the two companion volumes as "rollicking" fun for young readers.

In addition to fictional stories, Harvey shares his art techniques with young readers in Roland Harvey's First Ever Book of Things to Make and Do and Roland Harvey's Drawing Book. As in his illustrations for middle-grade histories, the artwork in Roland Harvey's Drawing Book provides opportunities for laughter as well as learning, while the author/illustrator's clearly written asides and captions convey a tremendous amount of information about drawing techniques such as perspective, light and tone, and shape. Special attention is paid to techniques used in drawing people and animals. "In short," concluded Kevin Steinberger in a Magpies review, Roland Harvey's Drawing Book "is quite the most thorough and engaging drawing manual for children I've ever seen."

"My parents were both graphic artists, which gave me a lot of confidence in my drawing," Harvey once told SATA. "It also stalled my entry into the real world of illustrating: my mum and dad had suffered in the Great Depression. So I tried a number of other careers and finally architecture, which I loved. Ironically, another depression in the building trade pushed me from architecture into illustrating, then writing and illustrating, and then publishing, writing, and illustrating. I love that even more.

"My first real success came with an attempt to present history in an interesting way. It was on that project that I discovered I work best in a team. Eureka Stockade, the true story of the Gold Rush in Australia and the miners' struggle against repression, was developed with Alan Boardman and was really the birth of my ‘style.’ In the illustrations of that book, little challenges and questions lurk in every corner, tiny tragedies and comedies are enacted off center stage. I have also worked on other history books, as well as on My Place in Space, an interesting collaboration between two astronomers (Robin and Sally Hirst), an airbrush wizard (Joe Levine), and me.

"I don't feel bound to book illustrating; a lot of my time goes toward developing my very Australian cards, kids' calendars, posters and ‘other things.’ I listen a lot to what my kids say about my books, such as ‘Dad—you can't say that!’ or ‘The reindeer wouldn't be rude to Santa!’ I also notice kids laugh at anything to do with toilets."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 15, 2004, Julie Cummins, review of The Best Restaurant in the World, p. 1627.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, March, 1990, review of My Place in Space, p. 163.

Canadian Review of Materials, May 11, 2001, review of Bloody Moments: Highlights from the Astonishing History of Medicine.

Horn Book, March-April, 1990, Hanna B. Zeiger, review of Dirty Dave, p. 189; May-June, 1990, Hanna B. Zeiger, review of My Place in Space, p. 325.

Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2006, review of At the Beach: Postcards from Crabby Spit, p. 291; October 15, 2006, review of In the Bush: Our Holiday at Wombat Flat, p. 1072.

Magpies, November, 1992, Cathryn Crowe, review of Crisis on Christmas Eve, p. 28; July, 1996, Kevin Steinberger, review of Roland Harvey's Drawing Book, pp. 40-41; March, 1997, Rayma Turton, reviews of The First Fleet, Eureka Stockade, and Burke and Wills, p. 24.

Publishers Weekly, October 9, 1987, review of The Friends of Emily Culpepper, p. 51; January 19, 1990, review of My Place in Space, p. 108; March 30, 1990, review of Dirty Dave, p. 60.

School Library Journal, March, 1988, Lee Bock, review of The Friends of Emily Culpepper, p. 164; April, 1990, Marcia Hupp, review of Dirty Dave, p. 91; November, 2000, Mary R. Hofmann, review of Bloody Moments, p. 170; October, 2004, Bina Williams, review of The Best Restaurant in the World, p. 129.

Resource Links, October, 2000, review of The Secret Record of Me, p. 15; December, 2000, review of Bloody Moments, p. 20.