Parker-Rees, Guy

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Parker-Rees, Guy

Personal

Born in Zimbabwe; married; children: three. Education: York University, B.A. (with honours); Hertfordshire University, diploma (art therapy).

Addresses

Home—Brighton, England. E-mail—[email protected].

Career

Illustrator of children's books, 1989—. Founder of "Art Attack" (mural-painting cooperative); has worked as art teacher in hospitals and as an art therapist in a social services day center.

Awards, Honors

Sheffield Book Award, Dundee Book Award, and Portsmouth Book award, all for Spookyrumpus and Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles Andreae; Blue Peter Book Award shortlist, 2002, for Giraffes Can't Dance, and 2003, for Quiet! by Paul Bright.

Writings

SELF-ILLUSTRATED

No Such Thing as Monsters, David Bennett (St. Albans, England), 1993.

Little Lost Jim, Walker (London, England), 1999.

ILLUSTRATOR

Sue Limb, Mr Loopy and Mrs Snoopy, Orchard Books (London, England), 1989.

Kenneth Oppel, Galactic Snapshots, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1993.

Julia Feast and others, editors, Preparing for Reunion: Adopted People, Adoptive Parents, and Birth Parents Tell Their Stories, Children's Society (London, England), 1994.

David Parkinson, The Case of the Pigeon's Pyjamas, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England), 1994.

Philip Wooderson, Teacher's Pet, Orchard Books (London, England), 1995.

Vivian French, Morris in the Apple Tree, Collins Children's Books (London, England), 1995.

Vivian French, Morris the Mouse Hunter, Collins Children's Books (London, England), 1995.

Alecia McKenzie, When the Rain Stopped in Natland, Longman (Harlow, England), 1995.

Andrew Matthews, The Smugglers of Crab Cove, Orchard Books (London, England), 1995.

Andrew Matthews, Super Spy, Miskin Snythely, Orchard Books, 1995.

Andrew Matthews, The Great Gold Train Robbery, Orchard Books (London, England), 1995.

Andrew Matthews, The Chocolate Bunny Plot, Orchard Books (London, England), 1995.

Valerie Wilding, Prince Vince and the Hot Diggory Dogs, Hodder Children's Books (London, England), 1995.

Valerie Wilding, Prince Vince and the Case of the Smelly Goat, Hodder Children's Books (London, England), 1995.

Clare Bevan, The Shoe Box Millionaire, Macdonald Young (Hove, England), 1996.

Clive Gifford, The Really Useless Spy School, Hodder Children's Books (London, England), 1996.

Enid Blyton, Bimbo and Topsy, Bloomsbury (London, England), 1997.

Enid Blyton, Best Stories for Five Year Olds, Bloomsbury (London, England), 1997.

Mary Hooper, Slow Down Sally, World International (Handforth, England), 1997.

Anita Naik, Friends or Enemies?, Hodder Children's Books (London, England), 1997.

Julie Bertagna, The Ice-Cream Machine, Mammoth Books (London, England), 1998.

Jan Burchett and Sarah Vogler, The Terrible Trainer, Bloomsbury (London, England), 1998.

Jan Burchett and Sarah Vogler, The Cup Final, Bloomsbury (London, England), 1998.

Frank Flynn, Glumf, Ginn (Aylesbury, England), 1998.

Michaela Morgan, Dexter's Dinosaurs, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England), 1998.

Peter Wastall, Old MacDonald's Recorder Book, Boosey & Hawkes (London, England), 1998.

Jan Burchett and Sarah Vogler, Ghost Striker, Bloomsbury Children's Books (London, England), 1999.

Giles Andreae, Giraffes Can't Dance, Orchard Books (London, England), 1999, Orchard Books (New York, NY), 2001.

Alan Durant, Big Bad Bunny, Orchard Books (London, England), 2000, Dutton Children's Books (New York, NY), 2001.

Geraldine Taylor, My Secret Book of Rules, Ladybird (London, England), 2001.

Tony Mitton, Down by the Cool of the Pool, Orchard Books (London, England), 2001, Orchard Books (New York, NY), 2002.

Julia Jarman, Flying Friends, Scholastic (New York, NY), 2002.

Julia Jarman, Owl's Big Mistake, Scholastic (London, England), 2002.

Julia Jarman, Mole's Useful Day, Scholastic (London, England), 2002.

Tony Mitton, Bumpus Jumpus Dinosaurumpus!, Orchard Books (London, England), 2003, published as Dinosaurumpus!, Orchard Books (New York, NY), 2003.

Julia Jarman, Rabbit Helps Out, Scholastic (London, England), 2003.

Giles Andreae, K Is for Kissing a Cool Kangaroo, Orchard Books (New York, NY), 2003.

Paul Bright, Quiet!, Orchard Books (New York, NY), 2003.

Tony Payne and Jan Payne, The Hippo-NOT-amus, Orchard Books (New York, NY), 2004.

Roger McGough and Brian Patten, The Monsters' Guide to Choosing a Pet, Penguin Books (London, England), 2004.

Tony Mitton, Spooky Hour, Orchard Books (New York, NY), 2004.

Tony Mitton, Spookyrumpus, Orchard Books (London, England), 2004.

Richard M.N. Waring, Ducky Dives In!, Barron's Educational Series (Hauppage, NY), 2004.

Tony Mitton, Come to Tea on Planet Zum-Zee, Orchard Books (London, England), 2005.

Giles Andreae, The Chimpanzees of Happytown, Orchard Books (New York, NY), 2006.

Tony Mitton, Playful Little Penguins, Walker Books (New York, NY), 2007.

Tony Mitton, All Afloat on Noah's Boat!, Orchard Books (New York, NY), 2007.

Karen Wallace, Thunderbelle's Party, Orchard Books (London, England), 2007.

Karen Wallace, Thunderbelle's Spooky Night, Orchard Books (London, England), 2007.

Karen Wallace, Thunderbelle's New Home, Orchard Books (London, England), 2007.

Karen Wallace, Thunderbelle's Bad Mood, Orchard Books (London, England), 2007.

Ian Whybrow, Along Came a Bedtime, Orchard Books (London, England), 2007.

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Karen Wallace, Thunderbelle's Beauty Parlour, Orchard Books (London, England), 2008.

Karen Wallace, Thunderbelle's Flying Machine, Orchard Books (London, England), 2008.

Karen Wallace, Thunderbelle Goes to the Movies, Orchard Books (London, England), 2008.

Karen Wallace, Thunderbelle's Song, Orchard Books (London, England), 2008.

Contributor to books, including What's That Noise?, Ladybird (London, England), 2001; The Orchard Book of Favourite Rhyme and Verse, Orchard Books (London, England), 2001; A Poem a Day, Orchard Books, 2001; and With Love, Orchard Books, 2004.

Sidelights

Guy Parker-Rees is a British artist known for his bright, comic-infused illustrations of animals, monsters, and exotic landscapes. Parker-Rees became a freelance illustrator in 1989 after working as a mural painter and art therapist. He has since provided drawings and paintings to more than fifty children's books published in England and America. In School Library Journal, Anna Walls described Parker-Rees's work as "brimming with color, action, and humor."

Most of Parker-Rees's books have been published in the United Kingdom, but more and more of them are making the transit across the Atlantic to the United States. Among these are Big Bad Bunny by Alan Durant and All Afloat on Noah's Boat! by Tony Mitton. Set in a brightly colored Wild West, Big Bad Bunny follows a bad-tempered rabbit as he demands money from more peace-loving animals. In the end, Bad Bunny meets his match and agrees to return all the loot. Connie Fletcher, writing in Booklist, liked Parker-Rees's "eyepopping" colors that "bring the desert backdrop to comical life."

In All Afloat on Noah's Boat! the tightly packed animals become ever crankier until Noah decides to give a talent show. Each species showcases his or her special abilities, cheering all the others in the process. A Kirkus Reviews critic found the book to be a "particularly buoyant version of the world's best-known cruise."

Many of the stories Parker-Rees illustrates are written in rhyme, and some reviewers have noted that the singsong prose and bright visuals make the books appropriate for active story hour reading. Mitton's Dinosaurumpus!, for instance, features a cast of stomping, dancing, leaping dinosaurs that revel in their exuberance. According to a Kirkus Reviews contributor, the book's paintings "resound and bounce on a glowing color palette." In her Booklist review of the same title, Gillian Engberg felt that Parker-Rees's "color-saturated cartoon-like artwork … shows the humor and farce" of the story. Parker-Rees strikes a similar lighthearted mood in his artwork for another rhyming story by Mitton, Down by the Cool of the Pool, in which farm animals dance to the waterhole and then roll into it en masse. To quote a Publishers Weekly correspondent, Parker-Rees's animals

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"radiate an infectious silliness." A Kirkus Reviews writer also liked the "wacky romp of a tale," with its "electrically jazzy artwork."

One of Parker-Rees's most popular titles is a collaboration with writer Giles Andreae titled Giraffes Can't Dance. Drawing sneers and jeers from the other jungle creatures, Gerald the giraffe tries to overcome his clumsiness and join in the dance. He achieves success when he discovers the perfect music for his taste. In Publishers Weekly, a reviewer noted that Parker-Rees's art "exudes a fun, party vibe." Another Parker-Rees animal who challenges convention is Portly the hippopotamus, the star of The Hippo-NOT-amus by Tony Payne and Jan Payne. Dissatisfied with his dull life in the mud wallow, Portly sets out to re-invent himself by mimicking other wildlife. Needless to say, he finds it difficult to be like a bat or a giraffe. Be Astengo maintained in School Library Journal that Portly's "multifaceted personality is well illustrated."

"‘Exuberance is beauty,’ once noted by William Blake, is one of my favourite quotations and it sums up what I aspire to with my illustrations," Parker-Rees told SATA. "I do think it's very difficult to handle strong colours in a sensitive way, and it's something I struggle with a lot in order to get across the sense of explosive awe I feel for this wonderful world of ours. I'm sorry to say that it's all too often something that fades with age. We stop looking at the real beauty of the world around us and those funny apes that have taken it over.

"I particularly like painting animals because they never make the reader feel excluded. There isn't that faint awareness the reader and child might feel that the people in the story don't look like the people in ‘my’ family. Everyone loves animas and maybe has enough DNA in common to identify with them!

"I'm lucky enough to work with some of the best poets writing for children at the moment and often the images just leap from the page as I read the stories for the first time. All I have to do is jot them down.

"Although I love illustrating big bold feelings, I particularly like capturing the subtler moments, maybe a little character looking on from the sidelines, small gestures of contact between characters going on in the background, the one who's a little bit left behind and running to catch up, the one who's finding it all a bit too much! All those feelings a child might see and recognize from their own lives.

"I do love my job!"

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 1, 2001, Connie Fletcher, review of Big Bad Bunny, p. 1689; January 1, 2003, Gillian Engberg, review of Dinosaurumpus!, p. 908.

Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2002, review of Down by the Cool of the Pool, p. 662; March 1, 2003, review of Dinosaurumpus!, p. 393; July 1, 2004, review of Spooky Hour, p. 634; May 1, 2007, review of All Afloat on Noah's Boat!

Publishers Weekly, September 10, 2001, review of Giraffes Can't Dance, p. 91; April 15, 2002, review of Down by the Cool of the Pool, p. 62; January 6, 2003, review of Dinosaurumpus!, p. 57; May 14, 2007, review of All Afloat on Noah's Boat!, p. 58.

School Library Journal, February, 2001, Sue Sherif, review of Big Bad Bunny, p. 99; October, 2001, Kathleen Simonetta, review of Giraffes Can't Dance, p. 104; July, 2002, Elaine Morgan, review of Down by the Cool of the Pool, p. 96; March, 2003, Dona Ratterree, review of Dinosaurumpus!, p. 200; December, 2003, Anna DeWind Walls, review of K Is for Kissing a Cool Kangaroo, p. 102; December, 2003, Andrea Tarr, review of Quiet!, p. 104; August, 2004, Catherine Threadgill, review of Spooky Hour, p. 90; September, 2004, Be Astengo, review of The Hippo-NOTa-mus, p. 177; May, 2007, Kathy Piehl, review of All Afloat on Noah's Boat!, p. 104; December, 2007, Catherine Callegari, review of Playful Little Penguins, p. 96.