Emma Quay: Can we have another question? Yes, there.

Student: How do you show in your words and your pictures that Bear and Chook are best friends?

Emma: I like that question.

Lisa Shanahan: It’s a lovely question. Well, you know I think the way I show that Bear and Chook are best friends is very much through the way they talk to one another. You know in ‘Bear & Chook by the Sea’ when Bear and Chook are going to the sea, Chook is very frightened. And the whole time he’s saying things like ‘I want to go home.’ And he’s scared of the noises that he can hear. And Bear doesn’t say to him ‘Oh, don’t be silly.’ When Chook says ‘I’m frightened and I hear this horrible noise.’ Bear says ‘Yes.’ And then he also does something that I think is very kind for Chook. He says ‘You know even though you feel very scared in this moment there’s still something to look forward to just over there.’ And he’ll say ‘There’s the forest.’ Or ‘There’s the mountain.’ And that way even though Chook is very scared, Bear is helping him to get through that moment. Now, when they finally get to the sea and have that lovely time together and then Bear goes in and he gets dumped by that terrible wave, does Chook say at that moment, ‘I told you so.’? No. Does he say ‘You should have listened to me.’? No. He says ‘Oh Bear, are you alright?’ And then as they go back together this time it’s Chook who says ‘Look, there’s the mountain.’ ‘There’s the forest.’ ‘There’s the bridge.’ As Bear is wailing ‘I want to go home.’ And when they finally do get home and that night they’re lying you know together by the pond and when Bear says ‘I think’ said Bear, ‘I could have ridden that wave if I’d had a big surfboard.’ I think that Chook really knows that Bear probably couldn’t have ridden that wave even with a big surfboard. But he says to him ‘Oh Bear,’ that’s Chook ‘Of course you could.’ And so the way I show that Bear and Chook are best friends is through the dialogue by the things that they say and also by the things that they don’t say. And that’s how I try to make that friendship just be, you know just show how close and loving it was. What about you Emma?

Emma: Well, I try and show the warmth and affection between the two characters through body language. There’s one picture actually in ‘Bear and Chook’, the first book. Have you read ‘Bear and Chook’?

Students: Yes.

Emma: Okay, there’s this picture. Do you remember that Chook gets almost squashed under the stage and Bear thinks that he’s really, really hurt and this is the moment when Bear discovers Chook’s alright and he hugs him and holds him tight. I knew I wanted to have lots and lots of warmth in this picture and love. And actually when I was painting it I was pregnant with my younger daughter and my tummy was out here and I could barely reach the desk to paint and in order to put lots of love in this picture I thought about how I would feel about my baby when it was born and how I would hold my baby. And I tried to put all that feeling in this picture. And actually when we read this to people often when I turn the page there’ll be a sort of ‘Ahh’ going around the room. So, obviously a little bit of that love went into the picture. And then in the second book ‘Bear & Chook by the Sea’, I put little touches into the illustrations like when they’re looking in the rock pool, Chook’s resting his chin on Bear’s knee. It’s all very relaxed kind of affection you know not overly ‘Oh, I love you’ or anything like that. Just little touches. Or you know when Bear’s dumped onto the sand, Chook cradles his head as best he can because Chook’s small, much smaller than Bear and his head’s bigger than him. Touches like that. And I think that helps show their warmth and friendship.