“For 5–10-year-olds and anyone with a sense of humour.” Despite being significantly older than the age bracket described, Paul Geraghty succeeded in convincing the audience why his books are so popular, and how he is still a child at heart.
The tagline of Geraghty’s presentation was what first attracted me to his discussion at the Franschhoek Literary Festival, coupled with the big reputation that precedes him. As a fan of his work I was not disappointed. His on-stage charisma and energy managed to entertain the young audience; and his ability to encourage laughter and interaction with “miniature people”, as he called the children, further strengthened the merit of his presentation.
In a hall with around 200 young schoolchildren, Geraghty engaged the audience by asking questions and using his unique pronunciation of particular words. He combined his sense of humour with facts about his childhood as he described his passion for illustration and the fact that he gets paid to do what he loves. Using a well-structured presentation, he showed the audience images from his book The Hoppameleon while narrating the tale of a confused frog, a unique and fresh story.
His illustrations in the books show his perfectionist nature, as each image is meticulously drawn to provide a certain look. He combines this seriousness with his love of frogs, which he includes in every story. His love of nature is evident in his attention to detail and his engaging take on animal life.
The other story that Geraghty presented was Dinosaur in Danger, the tale of Talon the dinosaur who has lost her pack and is looking for another one. The book contains the moral lesson of friendship and sharing, yet does so in a unique way. In the presentation, Geraghty included the sound effects of the dinosaurs, keeping the young audience enthralled with his engaging ability to narrate, coupled with beautiful on-screen illustrations. Geraghty explained to the audience that to write the story of Talon the dinosaur he consulted historians so that his time frame of events in the dinosaur era was accurate.
Geraghty briefly described his background. He was born in Pietermaritzburg, the youngest of three brothers, so he spent a lot of time in his own world. He explained to the audience how he finds his ideas in what he used to imagine as a child, describing how he turned every sound made by insects and animals into a far-fetched story in his head – almost ready-made for a children’s book. His names for each character in his books got a laugh from the audience just about every time, especially when he rattled off a long-winded name combining Xhosa, English and Afrikaans names, ending (as they always do) with the surname Johnson.
At the beginning of the presentation Geraghty began to draw a penguin, which he continued to illustrate and add to throughout the presentation. The penguin, which he completed within the hour, displayed his mastery at illustration. Upon completing the penguin, he spoke about the creative process when developing a book. In his presentation he included images of his rough work, showing how it slowly develops as he comes up with a story to go along with the illustration. The rough sketches, along with images of his workspace – a complete mess with paint palettes and coffee everywhere – quintessentially catches the life of an illustrator.
He summed up his presentation the same way he started it, by asking the audience a question. At the beginning his question to the audience was to define the word fantastic. Upon asking a number of children, he came up with the answers brilliant, excellent and a work of fantasy. At the end of the show he asked the facetious question why a book is called a book. After asking the audience and not getting the right answer, he concluded that the word got its name from the thudding noise it makes when the pages are slammed together. Despite such childlike humour, his love for nature, illustrations and storytelling, combined with his charismatic personality, demonstrate why he is so popular, as the two words he started and ended with describe just what he writes: fantastic books.
This report was written by a member of the Contemporary Literary Practice (English) honours group at Stellenbosch University. The CLP module includes report-writing in the mould of literary journalism, along with other forms of writing and literary practitionership. The report was co-edited by group facilitator Leon de Kock.
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