31 years ago, I was living in Stockholm
and my youngest was a year and a half. Three steps up and no elivator,
it became really messy to climb up and down with the child and all the
food from the market.
A
really stubborn kid, and a hysteric parent, trying to make the way throughto
the foodmarket, just go aut to buy somemilk or egg...or something else
that they runned out of.
But there
was no books!
I was totally exhausted and
went away to the nearest
bookshop. Now I was buying a
book about "how to get dressed, for children" There
was a book about a bear getting dressed...it was really
perfect. And a minibook about a mouse family,
with a picture of a mouse getting dressed!
There
was a book of a rabbit, but it was already dressed!
And no explenation of how!
I was both an artist and a mother
of small children, so my disapointment over a missing story-book
for children was huge, but it didn´t last for long... That evening
I sat on my little sons bed and wrote a tale...The pen drawed a little
fellow...and my child called him "Thomas".
Thomas was getting dressed...
What did he do then?...I asked
my child.
Oh, he took his cap...and then his
shirt...and...
Then I drawed the problem with a
cap stucked
and my child was laughed uncontrolled!
"That´s
wrong!!!"
Then he told me the story about how to do it right!
getting
dressed...and how he did it right at
the end!
The week after, I looked in the phonebook for a childbook publisher. I looked for an serious company, because it was for the smallest children...
Next door, on the same street there
was an publisher called SAGA. So practical! My kid could walk with me as
he was!
We went to the publisher together,
with the draws only to HARRIET ALFONS. She promised to let us now shortly.
We didn´t have to wait too
long, she called me to
set up a new meeting.
She was thrilled by excitement, but
her opinion was that the
book was a little bit satirical
drawed. With some changes he would
look more like a nice guy than a little
hooligan... And I had to
set a text to the pictures.
Why? I said! Okey to redraw the pictures, because I agreed that my visious sence of humor maybe token overhand, but printing...how´s that? Kids in that age can´t read!?
Then Harriet said: No, perhaps they wouldn´t need it, but there parents will!
I was little angry I was, but with
a lot of hard will, I re-made the book and drawed some more...!
The book when Thomas going out was
finished! And in the same moment I drawed the book when Thomas is taking
a bath...! I went up to Harriet agan and she said: GOOD!
That was that, and it all started...!
The books came out on the market the
year later. They had a plastic spiral back and they falled apart easly.
They was wrong printed and really ugly...
I was mad as a bee!
I didn´t get more happy when
the review came out - the first one.
My work got the grade:
The original publisher SAGA/Teacherspublisher
was bought up by AWE/Gebers. The contacts by Angus Hudson became something
magic, he recruit many foreign publisher, one by one.
Thomas books arrived in the right
time and in the right place. Angus filled rooms with Thomas ,
books and he sold book after book. 
At the most, Thomas was in 14 language in 17 countries...(if I remember
it right). Everywere the books were popular by the parents and there kids.
There was some countries that had some strict discipline, they re-made
Thomas so it should fit there way of thinking, but in these countries Thomas
never found his way to the kids. It was in Germany and in Japan they tryed
to change Thomas impression. In Japan, Thomas was a real opposite of there
way to raise kids and Thomas became an object of a discussion about how
to raise kids! He was an opposite for their culture!
No one is like Thomas!
Home in Sweden, some other publisher
tryed to publish simulary books, but it never got the same impression that
Thomas did and the kids only had the picture of Thomas. Of some reason
Thomas "dreary pictures and poor text´s" become unreplaceable! Harriet
Alfons has in one moment tryed to express what´s souniqe whit Thomas
- his little buttons for eyes! The direct contact with the reader by the
buttons. He sort of masterd the public to see a little child´s need
for a own will, create on there own and just to be theirself´s.
Thomas affected his public in the
same way, as when my little stubborn son made his will clared, forced me
to help him in THE RIGHT WAY. When it became books of it, to reach out
to other children...followed my son´s charisma to bee Thomas charisma...I
thought! But sure, the "buttons" was a great tool to make that form of
contact!
The dentistvisit was the beginning
for something new! Betsy come to the world! She is as a book only a couple
years younger than Thomas, but she got the same life in the shape
of books. Betsy is a child two years older than Thomas. She´s more
emotional complicated than Thomas.
Her little brother is both loved
and hated...a theme that´s following the books in a way or another.
Betsy is Thomas, who just understod
that the world not only is his person alone!
Then, in 30 years ago, I was just
another helpless mother, as proffesion I was just a drawer.
So for any one to know, Thomas was
made by an person with a lot of own will, and by some one who wanted to
do everything by her own hands!
Gunilla Wolde / Thomas is now avaible at the publisher Natur och Kultur, in Sweden.
Publisher
Bokförlaget Natur och Kultur/ Sweden
Mail to
Nina Östlund