Nosy Crow to publish picture book written by Mal Peet with his wife, Elspeth Graham

We are incredibly proud to be publishing a picture book by award winning author Mal Peet and his wife Elspeth Graham. The couple worked together on several picture book,s and this is one of the last stories they created before Mal’s death in 2015. The picture book, The Treasure of Pirate Frank, is illustrated by Jez Tuya and will be published on 4^th May.

Mal and Elspeth began their writing careers working together; they produced over 100 easy readers. Mal then turned to books for an older audience. He was a highly-acclaimed children’s author, receiving the Carnegie Medal for Tamar and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize for Exposure. The husband and wife continued to work together, writing stories for younger children, including Cloud Tea Monkeys a retelling of a Chinese folk tale.

Elspeth Graham said: ‘One of the great pleasures in our life was to walk together every day with our dog – and it was on the beach that Pirate Frank came to us. I told Mal the first lines then together we played with the rhyme and the words until we ended up with this cumulative text story. We were intrigued by Nosy Crow, watching the company grow and sharing its picture book apps with all the children we knew. Listening to Kate talk we realised how much we wanted to give her this story, and I know Mal would be so pleased to know The Treasure of Pirate Frank had found its home at Nosy Crow.’

Kate Wilson said: ‘I’m hugely proud that we are publishing this book. I’d admired Mal’s work since reading Tamar in 2005, but, given his huge strength in YA (and we don’t do YA), I never expected to have the privilege of publishing him. I met Mal at an event about independent publishing at The Society of Authors in 2014 and shortly afterwards he got in touch asking if I’d like to see the picture book he and his wife Elspeth had created. It took us time to find the right illustrator: we wanted someone who would bring freshness and humour to the text, which is exactly what New Zealander Jez Tuya does.’

You can take a look inside The Treasure of Pirate Frank below: