SARA: Initially it was the appeal of drawing the young Zebra character, Gabriel. But I liked the way Kate Rundell had developed a bond in the story between the little girl protagonist Mink, and Zebra Gabriel, making a strong and surprising friendship. Overall the story plays with clever twists on The 101 Dalmatians. I had illustrated Dodie Smith's book a few years earlier for The Folio Society and the idea of now focusing on stripes rather than spots had exciting possibilities. Mink houdt niet van regels, ook niet als het bedtijd is. Ze schommelt liever buiten. En daar ontmoet ze op een avond Storm, een babyzebra. Ze ontdekken dat ze met elkaar kunnen praten door een soort van kleurenmagie in hun hoofd. Storm is verdrietig en in paniek, want zijn ouders zijn gevangengenomen door meneer Spuug, een échte slechterik die dieren verzamelt.

KATHERINE: The thing I loved about writing shorter books for younger writers is that you can hold the whole story in your head at once: where novels sprawl outside your imagination, a picture book can be held steady, so you can look at it from every angle, and bend it into shape. The YA author Juno Dawson is also taking strides into a younger market with her witty, chatty take on gender and acceptance, You Need to Chill (Farshore). Sporting sparkly sunglasses and a no-nonsense attitude, Bill’s sister finds herself having to fend off constant questions from her classmates about where Bill has got to. Is he hiding? Is he ill? The truth is that Bill now identifies as Lily and, as her sister tells us in this lovely rhyming tale with illustrations by Laura Hughes, everyone needs to calm down about it. KATHERINE: A girl, Mink, is playing on the swing near her home when she hears a noise, goes flying and bumps her head. The noise was a baby zebra called Gabriel and the bump has shaken something loose: now she can understand animals, through pictures and colours behind her eyes. De geweldige zebra-ontsnapping’ is echt een spannend, grappig én hartverwarmend verhaal. Het is een mooie overgang van prentenboek naar leesboek, maar zeker ook een ideaal voorleesboek. De tekst is verspreid over een zestigtal bladzijden mét prachtige illustraties van Sara Ogilvie. Die prenten zijn echt een enorme verrijking op elke pagina, zo speels en wervelend. I loved that animals could talk and the way they did it. With pictures and a lot of colours which Sara Ogilvie brilliantly showed. I would love to be able to talk to my hamsters, I tried, believe me, but sadly it seems only to work in books and movies.

“Those who ask for help often create the potential for change” Katherine Rundell on The Zebra’s Great Escape

SARA: There were a few. Mainly the spreads that needed to show the full alphabet of animal pairs collected by Mr Spit. I really loved drawing them all but the varying sizes of them meant getting creative with positioning small creatures in places they'd be seen. Elephant trunk ends and little animals grabbing onto ears offered good solutions. Rundell and Ogilvie share the space so well in what is a delightfully inspired partnership from Bloomsbury. At times, Rundell’s narrative dominates but is always accompanied by Ogilivie’s richly-coloured vignettes. At other times, the words are reduced so that the watercolour, pen and print illustrations can dominate: the escape of the animals from their cages is an absolute delight and a real cavalcade of colour and energy. It is clear that Ogilvie has spent time with the text and chosen key moments to represent with real care.

SARA: It was great to finally see it. I think most illustrators have nervous excitement when they open the finished book for the first time. You almost always find a few little mistakes or things you would now do differently as you spend so many months working closely on the images. When the final printed book arrives quite a bit of time has passed, you've caught up on sleep and you can look at it with fresh eyes. Please note that sensitive children may find this story confronting as it does talk about Mr Spit collecting the animals with the intention to kill and then stuff them. He is also quite a scary character and calls Mink an 'idiot child'. SARA: A mixture of ways and media. The drawn line is very important as I'm a pencil scribbler at heart. I like to keep the energy in the initial sketches so I use a light box to translate my roughs to final drawings. The line work gets built upon with media such as ink, gouache, coloured, pencil, printmaking, collage, rubbings, stencils etc. Anything that gives the right kind of mark (I have used scanned banana peels and dried porridge before!) Drawings get scanned and digitally finished. The approach and media often depend on what the book is about and the atmosphere it needs.The Primary School Library Alliance is calling on the government to match-fund the private investment it has brought into helping primary schools c... Written with generous helpings of warmth and humour, this is a timeless picture book about bravery, friendship and the importance of taking action. With stunning illustrations by award-winning illustrator Sara Ogilvie, illustrator of The Detective Dog, this modern classic from bestselling children's author Katherine Rundell is an unmissable treat. Mink knows she has to help Gabriel the zebra. But how? He can’t live in her bedroom forever, cosy as it is. She chats to the neighbour’s dog, and soon a chain of animals is passing on the urgent message to look out for two zebras in a cage. Will they find Gabriel’s parents in time? Seems to hum with the history of Welsh legends’: The Boy Who Dreamed Dragons by Caryl Lewis. Illustration: Carmen Saldana What inspired the story? Do you keep an ideas notebook with you at all times so you don't miss any good ideas?