Your Oxford Story: Harriet Muncaster

Author

Harriet Muncaster

“There are whole magical exciting worlds just waiting to be discovered between the pages of a book, so I would encourage young readers to pick up and read one!”

I was always a big reader as a child, and I remember my mum taking us to the library a lot. I have always been very enchanted by illustrations, and they have been very important to me. I didn’t realize it then, but I can see how I’ve carried them with me into my career.

When I started out, I just wanted to create what I was passionate about. When I was at school and we were studying fine artists, that type of art never really clicked for me and the type of pictures I was interested in creating didn’t look like the work we were studying. It wasn’t until we saw an exhibition of work by the children’s author and illustrator James Mayhew as part of our school art lessons that I saw there was a space for the kind of art that I wanted to create.

That’s when I first became determined that that was what I wanted to do: I wanted to write stories and illustrate them, so I just followed the path of studying illustration through a foundation course, a BA, and then an MA that was specifically in children’s book illustration. Amazingly, James Mayhew turned out to be one of the tutors on that MA! I was then incredibly lucky that it was actually a very smooth journey into getting published, which lead to me doing a few picture books before I created Isadora Moon.

I think I realized that my writing style naturally worked for children’s writing—maybe because I have always been very young in mind and spirit, and never ‘grew out’ of loving illustrated children’s books! I don’t think I could ever write an adult book, and I don’t think I would want to!

I don’t really know where sparks for creating a new story come from. For me, they often come from very small things, like someone wearing a particular item that I might see when out and about, or even something like a little flower that might be particularly pretty. That might spark off an idea for a miniature flower crown for a character, which will then snowball into a story. I feel like my inspirations often come from very little things. 

When I first created Isadora Moon, my agent sent it out to publishers and OUP had the most enthusiastic response to it. I was delighted when OUP commissioned me for four Isadora Moon books, and I’ve actually worked only with them ever since. I feel very lucky to have been given a lot of freedom when working on my books with OUP, and it has been wonderful to work with the editors there. I’m always in awe of the design team, many of whom I’ve been working with since Isadora Moon was first published 10 years ago, because I don’t have any design skills myself and they always lay everything out so beautifully!

I am very proud of Isadora Moon and the fact that it has been such a long-running series now and I really have OUP to thank for that, firstly for spotting my book and giving it a chance.

I’m also really proud and pleased and grateful to have been able to publish my Victoria Stitch books, because I actually created Victoria Stitch back when I was eighteen, and she is incredibly important to me. It was one of my life goals to get Victoria Stitch published, and I’m so happy OUP helped me achieve that goal because now I’m able to publish The Diary of Wiska Wildflower in the same Wiskling world that I’m so passionate about.

It’s absolutely wonderful to hear when a child has enjoyed my books because I have put so much of myself and my passion into creating these worlds and these characters. With my World of Isadora Moon books in particular, I quite often get messages saying that my books have helped reluctant readers, or readers who might find reading difficult due to factors such as dyslexia. It’s so lovely to hear you’ve actually helped someone! It’s also, of course, absolutely wonderful to see when children really get into my books and they dress up as the characters in these fantastic costumes and make beautiful crafts.

One thing I am really trying to do with my books is create magical safe places that readers can step into, where everyone is welcome and the readers can find wonder and enchantment and safety and escape. That’s really what I would hope children can take away from my books. There are whole magical exciting worlds just waiting to be discovered between the pages of a book, so I would encourage young readers to pick up and read one! Books are like portals to new, exciting, wonderful worlds, and they nurture you in a way other things can’t.

As I have gotten older, and especially after having my own daughter, I now realize how valuable children’s books can be in setting good examples of kindness and tolerance. It’s widely accepted that reading fiction can help build empathy in all readers, and especially in children. With some of the things happening in the world today, I think this ability of books to help foster empathy is needed now more than ever.