My name is Frances and I write picture books. With picture book texts, it’s all about the words… how they sound, how they feel and what they do to your reader. I love words, even more than I love drinking tea – and that’s saying something! (I am the only person I know to have an actual tea drawer!) My earliest fixation on words was when, as a tiny tot, I was given “A Child’s Garden of Verses” by Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by Brian Wildsmith. This book helped define my childhood, and my childhood defined me. It was the blissful union of words and vibrant pictures that brought these poems to life – combined with the way my very poetic mother always read them with all the stresses in just the correct places, poetically speaking. Like poetry, picture books are born to be read aloud. To be tasted, chewed, savoured, and finally swallowed with a satisfying “Ah!” – leaving just enough room, of course, for some sneaky second helpings!