Illustrator Ingela P Arrhenius discusses her first standalone picture book for the UK

Before I begin my interview with Ingela P Arrhenius, the bestselling illustrator behind Nosy Crow’s beloved Felt Flaps and Peekaboo series, she urges me not to look at the artwork behind her on the wall. I hadn’t even noticed the admittedly rather tacky Americana on the wall of her Airbnb (the Sweden resident is currently in Los Angeles) but it is true that it doesn’t in any way, shape or form stand up to Arrhenius’ own work, which has made such an impact on the baby and toddler book market over the past seven years.

Talking about art seems like a fitting start to our meeting on Zoom to discuss Marvellous Margot, Arrhenius’ first picture book for Nosy Crow (and her first for the UK market). The story is about a cat (Margot) who makes a cake for her best friend, Oscar. As she travels through the town to drop off the cake she dishes some out to her other friends too, meaning there might not be any for Oscar when she gets there. But Margot need not worry because when she arrives Oscar has made his own cake to share. The message is one of kindness and friendship and the storyline, combined with the delightful anthropomorphised animal characters, gives the book a classic yet contemporary feel.

After working in the same style for many years, I wanted to develop more of a hand-drawn style

Unlike most picture books, Nosy Crow created a picture book around Arrhenius’ artwork after seeing work the artist was doing on Procreate, a computer application for illustration. “I bought an iPad and I started working with Procreate. After working in the same style for many years, I wanted to develop more of a hand-drawn style,” she says. “[Nosy Crow] saw it and said it would be nice for a picture book, and I talked to them about the kinds of children’s books I like. They came back to me with a text by Louise Peacock, the author of Marvellous Margot.” Peacock is in fact Nosy Crow’s publishing director of picture books, Louise Bolongaro.

Arrhenius made no changes to the text but there was a bit of back and forth when it came to getting the images right: Margot (a cat) and Oscar (a bear) initially started life as a mouse and an elephant, but Arrhenius couldn’t get their expressions quite right. Also, the team decided there should be more street scenes after the first roughs, meaning Arrhenius had to go back and do a new set.

When I ask if creating a picture book is very different from making a book for babies and toddlers, the answer is a resounding “Yes! I talked to my husband [a scriptwriter] about this the other day because he is working on a movie at the moment, and he was explaining how it is so hard because you can show a scene in so many different ways. That’s exactly like a picture book. You have this short sentence and you can show it in so many ways, and say things in the picture that aren’t in the text. The Peekaboo and the Felt Flap series are so very simple, and it’s hard working with simplicity as well, but it’s a different way of thinking.” Another struggle is working out how to do the beginning and the end of a picture book, but once you have got those the process “is pure joy… the middle is just fun”, she adds.

Changing gears

Arrhenius began working with Nosy Crow in 2015—she has been an illustrator and product designer in her native Sweden for 30 years—when the UK publisher spotted her talent. It was Camilla Reid, former editorial director of the pre-school and novelty list at Nosy Crow, who came up with the idea for the Felt Flaps books and Zoë Gregory, now art director for pre-school titles, suggested they collaborate with Arrhenius. Her eye-catching artwork, combined with the genius idea of making the flaps out of felt, which is easy for babies to grab, made the first book, Where’s Mr Lion?, a big hit. It won the Sainsbury’s Children’s Book of the Year Award in 2017. Since that title was released in 2015 there have been 30 books in total and the series has sold more than a million copies through the UK TCM, says Nosy Crow.

It’s better for them to remove things if they think it’s too much. And I often send more than one version at the same time, with different colours

The Peekaboo series, which came later, came about after Reid visited Arrhenius’ studio in Stockholm. “We wanted to talk about a new series and in my studio I had faces everywhere on the walls. We said, ‘We should do something with faces in a fun way’. The idea started to grow from there.”

Arrhenius says she can put together a book for babies and toddlers very quickly (the artwork for time-sensitive releases like the upcoming Where’s Mr King? was finished before the contract was even signed) but wants to stress how collaborative her work with Nosy Crow is. “First of all I get really good sketches from them, then we send it back and forth four or five times. I often start with too many details, because that’s a smarter way of working. It’s better for them to remove things if they think it’s too much. And I often send more than one version at the same time, with different colours.”

These two series have, together, made Arrhenius very successful and in 2021 she was the 12th-bestselling illustrator in the UK, according to the data compiled by The Bookseller via Nielsen BookScan. This is a phenomenal achievement, given how hard it is to launch new artists in the baby and toddler book sector. “I’m so happy I ended up working in the publishing industry abroad, like with France and the UK, because Sweden is such a small country. You cannot do books like this, with sliders and flaps, in Sweden. You have to be in a bigger market,” she says. “I also love that when Nosy Crow comes back to me when they want me to change something, it’s always put as a question, which is a very polite way of giving feedback.”

Marvellous Margot is being published as a standalone title but there will be more books in the Felt Flap and Peekaboo series to come, and Arrhenius is also working with Walker Books in the UK. And in Sweden, she is doing some original books with her best friend, and many of her books that were published in the UK are now being bought by Swedish publishers, which makes her smile. “Almost every day I think about how happy I am doing what I’m doing.”