An Olds-area author and her mother have written and illustrated a children's book.
Corina Whyke wrote the story, called The Adventures Of Harry W. Mouse The Sea Monster, in about an hour. It took her mother, Eva Green a little longer to create the illustrations – about two months. They say the book is aimed at kids ages 3 to 10.
Whyke, who lives on an acreage outside Olds, will be at Pandora's Boox & Tea this Saturday (March 19) at 1 p.m. for a book launch and signing. It's the first book she's ever written.
Whyke says she wrote the book last spring because she's rather competitive.
“I've always wanted to write a book,” she says. My friend phoned me when she started writing a kids' book. My competitive side came out and I thought, ‘if she can write a book, I can write a book,' and I sat down and I wrote my book.”
The story is based on her husband Brodie's dad, who passed away.
“It's about a mouse that actually took the wrong ship,” Whyke says. “He has adventures on the seas with pirates and he ends up in Australia and then, that's another book.”
Whyke hadn't planned on writing a sequel to this book, but she may. There's pressure on her to do so.
“Everyone who reads the book says, ‘well, where's the next one?' And in my head, I wasn't thinking of a next one,” she says.
“Brodie's dad – it's kind of like following his life, because he worked on the ships, the navy ships. And he was a cook, so that's kind of what he's doing here.
“And then Brodie's dad actually went to Australia and had lots of adventures there too, so a second book and a third book and a fourth book is easy, because his dad had so many adventures, you just put it in a kids' form. That's why it's in a mouse form,” she adds.
Whyke says it was surprisingly easy to write the book.
“I've always told stories to kids -- my kids (I had four kids) and then, their friends. They always wanted me to tell stories because I always have a surprise end for them,” she says.
Once the book was written, Whyke figured the next logical step was to send it out to some publishers. So she did. But she wasn't really expecting much.
“And then I got a phone call, and it's like, ‘oh my goodness, this is real,'” she says with a laugh. “They asked me how long it took me to write it and I was too embarrassed to tell them it took me an hour.”
Whyke's mom, Eva Green, has been painting and drawing for 40 or 50 years, so she was happy to do the illustrations for the book.
Whyke points out there are lots of details in Green's illustrations.
“There are little things, like little bugs, everywhere and little writings; it's quite interesting. You really have to look at her artwork, because it's quite attractive to little kids,” she says.
“I love this: the cat's toes hanging out of his shoes,” Whyke says with a laugh as she checks out one illustration.
She flips to another page.
“You look at the bald mouse with the two hairs; I swear that's Uncle Ernie,” she says. “I know it, right mom?”
Diplomatically, Green doesn't say.
Green says the illustrations were done in a variety of media.
“It's a mixture of different things,” she says. “I started out with watercolour but the paper was warping too much, so I went to acrylics and that worked fairly well, so it's half acrylic, half coloured marking pen.”
“That was a very fun project. That's the first book I've illustrated,” Green says, adding she might be interested in illustrating for others.
Already the woman who sparked Whyke's desire to write a book has asked Green to do illustrations for her own book.
When not writing children's books, Whyke works at Olds College.
"It's about a mouse that actually took the wrong ship," Whyke says. "He has adventures on the seas with pirates and he ends up in Australia and then, that's another book."CORINA WHYKEOLDS-AREA CHILDREN'S AUTHOR
