and the train goes

and the train goes - walker books

This is the second book I wrote and illustrated for Walker Books.Published in Great Britain, Australia, the USA and Japan. The initial idea came from this image - below - I made for a fashion company, which was made into a carpet.

Here are the front and back covers:

Here is the Japanese cover:

The endpapers - little train wheels - pick up on the colours from the cover:

The train originally went in the other direction:

We turned it around - which made more sense, as the book is read from left to right.

This is the early 'chicken' page. Really they should be 'hens' shouldn't they? Again going in the 'wrong ' direction.

The conveyor belt for the fresh eggs is slightly less obvious in the finished version (below). The 'chef' is tossing the egg to the other chef who is cooking for the business men.(See spread further down this page).

This spread - which did not make it to the finished book - shows a knitter gradually stripping a sheep of her coat.

Below are the finished spreads for the coal shoveler, business men, and the station platform.