A Q&A with Corina Fletcher, paper engineer for Playbook Farm - Nosy Crow Skip to content
Posted by Tom, October 16, 2012

A Q&A with Corina Fletcher, paper engineer for Playbook Farm

Subscribers to our Books Newsletter may already have read Corina Fletcher’s answers to our patented 5 Minute Q&A in the newsletter’s October edition, which featured the incredible Playbook Farm. That didn’t include Corina’s photo accompaniments, so we thought we’d print her answers in full here – along with a few extras.

Where do you work?
From an old granary in the garden at home.

What was the hardest thing about this book?
Cutting out all the fiddly bits around the corn in the field on page 3. We have to make our books over and over again by hand in order to check that the paper engineering is working perfectly and that the illustrations all fit and look right. However a very fine scalpel and a steady hand help.

What distracts you from work?
How much time have you got? Top contenders at the moment are: elevenses… Twitter… the garden… I could go on….?

Can you think of something that has inspired you recently?
Thomas Heatherwick’s beautiful and poetic Olympic Cauldron. I was at college with Tom many years ago, although on different courses, so my admiration was possibly tinged with a little envy too.

Is there a children’s book you could never got bored of re-reading?
I am still reading bedtime stories to my children, and one book that has definitely passed this test is ‘The Elephant and the Bad Baby’ by Elfrida Vipont and Raymond Briggs. Rumpeta, rumpeta, rumpeta! Am I the only one that has noticed the presence of Tesco lurking in the background of Mr Brigg’s illustrations of a 1970s high street?

You can hear from more of our authors and illustrators by signing up to our Books Newsletter here – the next issue will be in January.

And you can order Playbook Farm – an ingenious novelty package comprising a pop-up storybook which unfolds and transforms into a 3D farmyard landscape playmat, with cut-out cardboard animals and a tractor – online here, and see the video trailer below, along with a special first look at the first three Playbook projects together: Playbook Farm, Playbook Pirates (in proof form – the book will be on sale next September), and the third title at white dummy stage – can you tell what it is yet?

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