A Peek Inside: Grandude’s Green Submarine
Written by Paul McCartney
Illustrated by Kathryn Durst
Published by Puffin Books (UK) & Random House Children’s (US)
Hey everyone! My name is Kathryn Durst and I am so excited to be sharing some behind-the-scenes work from my latest book release, Grandude’s Green Submarine by Paul McCartney and illustrated by me! It was published in the UK September 2021 by Puffin Books, and in North America October 2021 by Random House Children’s Books. This book is of course the second in a series, the first book being Hey Grandude! which was published in 2019.
This series has been such a whirlwind to work on. I’m not even sure where to start. I think the question I get asked the most often from people is “How did this book project come about? How did you get connected with Paul McCartney to work on a children’s book?”. Great question!
The answer: it was through my amazing agents at The Bright Agency! But it didn’t happen overnight. One fall day back in 2017 I was approached by my agent Arabella and she asked if I’d like to do a sample for a top-secret book project coming up. I remember I was very swamped with work at the time and wasn’t sure if I’d even have time to work on the sample but I knew it was for a very cool project, so I pulled a few late nights to make sure I had enough to send. In the original sample I was asked to provide a few character sketches to get a sense of how I’d visualize the character Grandude. Here is what I sent them:
You’ll notice that they don’t look much like the final characters in Hey Grandude and Grandude’s Green Submarine! But it was a good start. And then the crazy part was : I had to wait. For a long time I didn’t hear anything and I assumed I hadn’t gotten chosen for the project. Until one day, months later, I got an e-mail from my agent to tell me the fantastic news!
That’s when the fun began. I went through multiple versions of the characters before we landed on one we liked. I got to work closely with Paul on his vision for Grandude as he had a very specific idea for the character in mind. He had to be cool, hip, eccentric, and an old british gentleman, all in one. He didn’t want them to look too much like himself or his grandchildren either. So I did a few more revisions until we got to the final characters you see in the book. Character design is my favourite part about making picture books, so I had a lot of fun doing this part!
So that was back when I was working on Book One. And the other question I get asked most often: Did you get to meet Paul? Yes, I did! I was lucky enough to join him at our book launch event back in September of 2019 where we did a book signing for Hey Grandude at Waterstones UK in London.
Here’s some photos from the launch. It was an amazing event - I got to paint a mural on the bookshop windows at Waterstones and another bookshop in London as well. They had made a set piece to look like Grandude’s living room. Paul did a reading of the book with some school children and I did a drawing demo! It was really fun but there was a lot of news/press there which made me a little nervous. But I think the whole event went really well!
The book was a huge success, it even made the NYT bestseller list for children’s picture books. It’s also been translated into (I think) around 40 languages which is really exciting. I think it’s a very cool experience to have people and bookshops all around the world tagging my book on social media in their home language. The publisher was kind enough to send me some foreign editions of the book Hey Grandude! and I love to have them around my studio. I have a friend who speaks dutch read me the dutch version Hé Yopa! I loved it!
So anyway you couldn’t imagine how pleased I was to hear that the publisher and Paul were keen to do a book two. And as the covid-19 pandemic seemed to be going nowhere fast, it was a good project to keep me busy during that time. Now with sequel books, a lot of the hard work is already done. The characters and look of the book have already been decided. So it does make jumping into book 2 a little easier. However there were still some new elements that I needed to work on. The main element for this new book was the new character, Nandude.
So here’s some of the designs I sent. Paul also had a vision of Nandude in his head that he wanted me to illustrate. He even sent me some of his own sketches so I could visualize the character! She needed to look around Grandude’s age but also young at heart, energetic and adventurous. Someone who’s got great stories to tell and has learned many songs along the way. The coolest part about Nandude is that Paul wanted to design a grandmother character who was an adventurer and musician. So, he wrote her as a character who played the accordion.
This makes her my all-time favourite character. Why?
Because both me and Nandude share a love of accordion playing! I have even heard some people say that She looks like me… Although my hair hasn’t turned white quite yet…
Many people ask me if Paul knew I was an accordion player when he wrote Nandude’s character. I believe that he did! So I really feel that I put myself into the illustrations in this book. In the audiobook of Grandude’s Green Submarine, Paul even wrote an original accordion tune which is very beautiful. You can listen to a section of it in the video here.
Some of the other designs I had to make for the new book included designs for the Green Submarine, Nandude’s “Accordionship” and Grandude’s super-cool inventions shed.
It was a lot of fun coming up with the different designs. Submarines aren’t objects I draw all the time and it took some time and research to come up with something appealing and functional! Below you can see the initial design for the shed vs. the final illustration.
The creation of this book went really quick after that. I personally think the artwork in book 2 looks even better than in book 1. But maybe you’ll have to pick up a copy and decide for yourself !
The last question I got asked a ton this year was “Is there going to be another book launch? Will you get to go to London again?”. But unfortunately, because of the covid-19 pandemic and travel restrictions it was not safe for me to travel internationally and participate in a book signing with a crowd of people. However there was a launch on the UK release date! And I so wish I could have been there! The publisher had a giant version of the Green Submarine and brought it to Waterstones in Liverpool (Paul’s hometown). The submarine was made so that chillers could put their faces through the window for pictures. It was so cool to see my artwork being brought to life in this way! I’m glad the submarine, at least, got to go on an adventure. Even if I wasn’t able to.
Thank you for reading!
Happy Adventuring!
-Kathryn
