Award-winning animator Please signs two picture books with HarperCollins

HarperCollins Children’s Books has signed two picture books by Bafta award-winning animator, writer and illustrator, Mikey Please.

In a major UK and US co-publication deal, world rights for the books were acquired by Alice Blacker, picture books publishing director at HarperCollins Children’s Books, alongside Luana Horry, executive editor at HarperCollins Children’s Books US, from Luke Ingram at the Wylie Agency.

The Cafe at the Edge of the Woods, the first book, will be published in hardback and paperback simultaneously in the UK, and in hardcover in the US, in September 2024. Book two will follow in September 2025.

The Café at the Edge of the Woods is described as Fungus the Bogeyman (Penguin) meets Grimms’s Fairy tales, “an outrageously original story in which an aspiring chef opens a café beside an enchanted wood and discovers the locals favour a most peculiar palate".

Please is a BAFTA-winning, Academy Award and Grammy-nominated animation director, illustrator and writer. In 2012 he co-founded Hoxton-based Parabella Studios, as a home for producing short films, music videos and TV pilots, before joining Cartoon Network to series direct in 2018. During this time, he worked as a visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art, the NFTS, and as a volunteer at the Hackney Pirates, supporting literacy for young people. In 2020 he joined Aardman Animations to co-create the Netflix Christmas musical “Robin Robin”, starring Richard E Grant, Adeel Akhtar and Gillian Anderson.

Please said: “As an obsessive collector and admirer of picture books, I’m both happy and a little nervous to be making my first foray into this beautiful world, but comforted to be doing so with my two favourite characters, Rene and Glumfoot, close at hand.

"The Cafe at The Edge of the Woods began life as a game called ‘Cafés’ played in the park with my wife and son. Jessica and Axel would pretend to be a downtrodden waiter and a pompous chef, and I would interrupt them, impersonating an ogre and demanding outrageous, disgusting food.

“I hope they will forgive me for exploiting our innocent fun for creative gratification and financial gain. Our game became this story, of an individual industriously following her dreams, weathering the obstacles and discovering the joys of collaboration. The book is both a love letter to them and a celebration of the wildly underrated art of arranging food to look like funny things.”

Blacker said: “I think I speak for the whole of HCCB children’s when I say we were all captivated by the world that Mikey has created in The Cafe at the Edge of the Woods. His is an extraordinary talent and we are beyond excited to be unleashing this game-changing picture book into the world in 2024.”

Horry added: “What a delight it is that children across the pond will get to experience Mikey’s irresistible debut picture book. Legend and lore meet fine cuisine in this delicious tale that doesn’t spare us any laughs or charm. Mikey is a mastermind of both world and character building, and to watch him create has been nothing short of amazing. We at HarperCollins Children’s Books US couldn’t be more honoured to help serve up this fantastic story.”