at the beach

Ideas for children, parents and teachers to explore and discover New Zealand’s sea life

for children

Explore and discover the New Zealand seashore, with At the Beach. In our book, we have chosen a few of the most common living things you will find. Ned has drawn pictures of them to help you recognise them and to show you where they live. Even if you don’t go to the beach very often, you can have fun playing I-spy looking for the animals in the illustrations. Gillian has written about what they eat (mostly each other) and how they survive at the beach.

be a nature explorer

There is a handy card published with the book that you can use to identify things. Take this with you when you go to the beach and find a way to keep a record of what you see. You could take photos, keep a notebook, or just send your Gran and Grandpa messages about what you’ve seen.

• What does the beach look like at high tide, low tide?
• What gets washed up in a storm?
• Have you seen something eating another animal?

Questions and Answers on At the Beach

Gillian and Ned answer children’s questions about At the Beach.

Why did you want to create a book about the beach?
We both like going to the beach with our children. Gillian’s son is grown up now, but she always wanted to have a book like this for him. Ned’s children are just the right age for this book.

How long did it take to write and illustrate?
It took 11 months from when we started it until it was out in bookshops, about 7 months of that was spent on writing and illustrating.

How did you find the information for the writing and for the illustrations?
Going to the beach and observing creatures and the habitats, taking photographs to look at later, reading what scientists have written – in books and on the internet, and checking facts.

How did you decide what words to use?
Gillian spent a lot of time on writing and rewriting to get the words right. Once we were happy with the illustrations, Gillian went back and rewrote some of the text to make sure it fitted exactly with the illustration.

How did you draw and colour the illustrations?
Ned used pencil to draw the pictures, then scanned these into the computer. He coloured them in using a programme called Photoshop.

How did you decide what animals to include?
This was one of the hardest things. There were always more animals that we wanted to include. In the end we used the criteria that the animals needed to be ones that most children in New Zealand had a chance of seeing at their local beach.

Why isn’t there an octopus in the book?
We realise that along with rays and jellyfish, octopus are pretty popular animals. We didn’t include an octopus because they are so good at hiding we thought most children would never get to see one. Maybe we were wrong!

Which page do you like best?
That’s a hard question, we love the whole book. If we had to choose, Gillian really really likes the pages with the sea star, sea anemone and kina, because Ned’s illustrations show the texture of these animals so well. Ned would pick the cover if you pushed him to choose.

Is there anything you would change?
Not really, except perhaps putting in an octopus!

How did you become an illustrator?
Ned was always drawing pictures at school, when he left school he went to Art School and to Design School.

How did you become a writer?
Gillian wanted to be a writer since she was 8. She worked in a publishing company learning about publishing, editing and creating books, which has really helped her become a writer.

What advice would you give to young writers and illustrators?
Keep drawing, the more you draw the better you’ll get. Same goes for writing, the more you write the better your writing will get. It is also a good idea to look at other people’s artwork and read other books and think about how they draw or use words to get ideas about what works.

How did you come to work together?
Our publisher at Craig Potton Publishing suggested we work together on At the Beach. It worked out really well and now we have another three books –  In the Garden, Under the Ocean and In the Bush.

What’s your favourite thing about going to the beach?
Ned says, I love how every time you go to the beach and poke around in the rockpools, you find something new. Gillian loves rock pools too – once she saw a reef star chase a paua around in a rock pool.

Have you seen a ray?
Yes we both have. Gillian sees them at Pukerua Bay every summer. Ned saw huge rays round Golden Bay, Nelson.

Have you been stung by a jellyfish?
Yes Ned has, it really hurt.

What’s your favourite seafood?
Ned likes sushi, Gillian likes squid.

gillian candler – author

I live in Pukerua Bay. I love the rocky shore here and walk along the beach every day. There is always something different to see. I’ve explored the rock pools many times with my son. Once we went to the rock pools at night with torches and saw colourful wandering sea anemones and were amazed by the activity in the pool. I’ve seen some unusual sights, an octopus trapped in a rock pool, and a reef star chasing paua around in a rock pool. Once a southern right whale spent a day in our bay, and I’ve even seen orca hunting for rays in our bay.
I write a blog about nature: explorediscovernature.blogspot.co.nz

ned barraud – illustrator

Ned is a talented illustrator with a passion for sea creatures. His work has been published frequently in the School Journal, and he illustrated The Earthquake and the Butterfly (2012). He works at Weta Digital as a texture artist and lives in Wellington, spending lots of time exploring the seashore with his three young children.

If you want to see some of my other pictures you can visit my site: www.nedbarraud.com