This book is for

Elizabeth

My son, Max, was two years old when I started working on this story and the proud owner of a "Thomas the Tank Engine" kite. Whenever we took the kite out, Max was always keen to hold the string and fly it himself. However this wasn't always practical - in a light wind he had difficulty getting it off the ground and in stronger winds I was worried that he would let go of it. It was his understandable frustration at having to stand by and watch a grown-up flying HIS kite that inspired this story.

I wasn't happy with the story the first few times I tried to write it, so I kept putting it to one side and went through several versions before I came up with the final draft.

The first version I have on file was written in 1998 and was called "Katie's Kite". It was very similar to the final version, except that the story was centred around a small girl rather than a small boy and it was not told in rhyme.

Two years later I had another version called "The Runaway Kite". This version featured animal characters, with Katie and her father replaced by a shrew and a mouse. A succession of progressively larger animals, ranging from a squirrel to a bear, attempt to secure the runaway kite – only to be pulled up into the sky after it. This animal version, which was still not in rhyme, included one of the airborne characters shouting the line "Find someone bigger to grab hold of it."

When I went back to the story for a third time, I fastened onto the phrase "someone bigger", reverted back to human characters and decided to try setting the story in rhyme – and this time I came up with something that I was happy with.

I think that the final story has a traditional nursery tale feel to it and I described it to prospective publishers as the "The Enormous Turnip" turned upside down, with a pinch of "The Golden Goose" thrown in.

Oxford University Press took the story and asked Adrian Reynolds to illustrate it. I had strong preconceptions about how the illustrations might look – I had expected to see lots of long shots with the little boy, Sam, and the kite at opposite corners of the spread. However Adrian's drawings turned out to be dramatically different, consisting chiefly of close ups and striking aerial perspectives. The resulting illustrations have exceeded my expectations and I think that they have made the story far more dynamic and immediately appealing. My favourite spread is the one that shows the postman being pulled up into the sky with all his letters tumbling out of his bag (click here to see this spread).

Find out about If We Had a Sailboat also Illustrated by Adrian Reynolds