Picture Book Ideas Month: Wellies

Time to begin. With the rain in various degrees of excitability tonight, this idea seems like a good place to start.

Wellies. That’s the idea. A book about wellies. (Wellies, aka wellington boots, gum boots, rubber boots, call them what you will.)

Wellies are such a familiar part of childhood. When I was little, wellies were pretty much all black or possibly green. All the designs, decorations and so on that are now connected with wellies seem impossibly exciting to me.

I want to explore what might happen to you if you put on different types of wellies, different patterns. Whether different pairs might take you on different adventures.

I like the notion of wellies having a mind of their own, possibly getting you into scrapes. The way grownups look at you and think ‘How did you do that?!’ but you know full well it wasn’t you, it was the wellies.

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Little girl gets new wellies. They are deep blue and have pictures of fish on them. Unfortunately the fish (and the wellies) want to go swimming in deep puddles. Little girl comes home with very wet feet.

Next she tries a pair with frog eyes on – and goes hopping off ahead of Mum, unable to stop. She manages to stop only by grabbing hold of the lollipop man’s pole, and hanging on until Mum catches up.

She borrows a pair that her older brother has outgrown – camouflage colour.  The boots take her under the hedge and vault her over the wall. At least they stand to attention when she and the boots get told off again.

Mum tries a different tack, and buys wellies with lots of flowers on. The flowers start to grow while she is standing in the queue in the supermarket, looking at the comics.

By the time Mum is ready to go, the tendrils have tangled round the trolley, and they are unable to move, until the manager comes out with a pair of Official Use Only scissors.

By now she and Mum are more cautious about the new pairs she tries on. Their neighbour offers to loan them a pair – but they have little spiders and webs on them. Mum and girl look at each other and shake their heads.

Even the ones in the shop window they pass, with butterflies on, make her move on. Her thought bubbles turn into butterflies as they walk away down the street.

Finally Mum finds a pair of plain black wellies. She smiles. The little girl smiles. These should be OK.

The little girl puts on the wellies. She notices that when it has rained, the wellies shine, like ink.

She dips her toe in the puddle, and begins to write.

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Some of these types of wellies are real – we own a pair with spiders on. Ones with frogs on are pretty commonplace. There are plenty of pretty-pretty wellies with dots and rainbows and so on, so inventing ones with flowers or butterflies seemed pretty straight forward.

I can see the wellies in my mind’s eye, perhaps a line of them on the cover, or in the end papers. I have in mind something of the jumble of wellies that you see in nursery cloakrooms on wet days.

I can also picture the final page, where the welly starts to write – the stroke would look something like one with a Chinese calligraphy pen.

Part of the attraction for me about the topic is that it’s very commonplace – but it then becomes extraordinary, as often happens in picture books. Small children have a strong liking for wellies – and their mums tend to have a strong dislike for the full-on jump in puddles.

Having boots with a mind of their own makes it possible to have an excuse for why you are soaking wet – again. Plus children can be quite territorial about wellies, so they take on personas of their own.

I am making a point of not researching during this month – at least, not picture books.
I don’t want to turn round and find out that someone has written something like this – or has even just done The Great Big Book of Wellies.

I’ve got my feet wet. Time for the next idea.