'Leigh Hobbs is the 2016-2017 Australian Children's Laureate. The theme for Hobbs’s term as Children’s Laureate is ‘to champion creative opportunities for children, and to highlight the essential role libraries play in nurturing our creative lives’.'
Unit Suitable For
AC: Year 12 English (Unit 4)
Themes
character, history, humour, illustration/cartoons, imagination, satire
General Capabilities
Critical and creative thinking, Information and communication technology, Literacy, Personal and social
Transcript available from website.
Show notes
- Leigh cites the pirate and adventure stories of his youth (including Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island and Kidnapped) as influences on the characters he develops for children. He also loved and was influenced by the work of Ronald Searle, an English cartoonist.
- Leigh discusses his studio and the where he writers at length. You can watch the video of Leigh showing off the wooden board his father gave him more than five decades ago, a wooden board he still uses to write and illustrate today.
- Leigh sees similarities between his children’s books and Fawlty Towers.
- We also spoke to Leigh’s long time editor, Erica Wagner from Allen and Unwin, about her collaboration with Leigh.
