Mini Grey 蜜妮葛瑞

風格與特色

由於作者身兼文和圖，所以在看繪本時更能明白作者所要表達的意思。
大部分都是英文書，不過其實藉由圖畫就可以得知故事內容在說什麼
我覺得作者在畫主角的部分盡量都是採用簡單樸素的畫風，
像是蛋蛋艾格、盤子和湯匙，還有豌豆…等等。因為作者的書一打開就是整個圖畫大大的呈現在眼前，
而且有很多東西的感覺，不過因為主角跟旁邊的背景相比顯得很簡單(線條而言)，所以一眼就可以認出來，不會太混亂。
常常在故事內容圖畫方面做一些鋪成。像是「The Pea and the princess」裡，在一開始蝴蝶頁的部分就有出現，
我還以為那個女生是主角，所以在看故事時一直疑惑為什麼那個女生都沒出現。
不過看第二次時，會發現其實蝴蝶頁出現的那個女生一直都在，只是因為感覺她不是重點所以會去忽略她。
還有蛋蛋艾格，我覺得當艾格飛起來時，大叫「哇！我在飛耶！」那一幕的畫面，她的嘴巴張開的地方很像一個荷包蛋，
不覺得很像是在故事最後一幕所看到的嗎？(純粹個人感覺)。
文字和圖畫沒有很多的衝突。文字通常會混在圖畫裡，不會感覺是很獨立出來的。
圖畫線條明顯，作者會幫圖畫加上邊框(就是線啦~)所以當兩個圖在一起時不會混在一起，就整體看起來簡單而明瞭。
在背景部分常發現一些有趣的畫。像是「The Pea and the princess」裡，
在牆壁或是窗簾的部分就常常出現蝴蝶頁時有出現過的蔬菜和水果，也為後來的故事做一些解釋，感覺就有很多的關連性。
在「THE ADVENTURES OF THE DISH AND THE SPOON」裡，在一開始逃出去漂泊在海上時出現的月亮上有自由女神的臉，
由這就可以知道他們會漂往何方。還有在最後SPOON對DISH說她看起來就像在一開始他們逃走時的那個模樣的那幕，在窗外的月亮變成了完好無缺的DISH。

相關報導、簡報

“The inimitable Mini Grey continues the story of the dashing duo with her usual panache... an original, detailed story told with great humour.” The Bookseller

“Sprung from a familiar stanza, this inventive tale of true love will sustain many readings by readers of all ages.” Publisher’s Weekly (US)

“Children will thrill and giggle with recognition at this genuinely funny artist” The Independent “Everything Mini Grey writes is an instant hit and Traction Man is no exception . . . She is a one-off and so is he” Observer

“Mini Grey, one of the brightest new stars on the picture-book scene, seems to be incapable of producing a dull word or picture . . . In her delightful Biscuit Bear. . . Grey’s text is beautifully matched by her clever visual jokes and inventive changes of perspective.” Financial Times

“Mini Grey is one of the rising stars of children’s illustration. Biscuit Bear . . . is visually scrumptious, a flavoursome mix of wit and skill.” The Sunday Times

“This zany retelling with Pea as hero and narrator - plus a clever twist at the end - is also captivatingly illustrated . . . A fresh, original picture book” The Bookseller

“This wittily inventive book gives the fairy-tale a whole new perspective . . . Mini Grey is a young author-illustrator of impressive originality” The Independent

“It just can’t be pigeon-holed and comes from an entirely original and quirky talent. Even the illustrations are one in a million, combining collage, digital photos, string and straw.” The Guardian

“The very special detailed illustrations use space and perspective in exciting ways to support the story.” RealBooks News

Mini Grey was given her name after being born in a Mini in a car park in Newport, Wales.

She attended Berkshire College of Art to do a Foundation course before going on to University College, London to do a BA Hons in English. Mini has also completed a Motley Theatre Design Course. After university, Mini worked as a theatre designer for several years before training as a primary teacher. This led to six years teaching in South London. She then moved to Oxford and started an MA in Sequential Illustration at Brighton University. During her time there she completed a project on Gulliver’s Travels, turning it into a pop-up book and animation.

Mini has dabbled in many interests and hobbies including gas welding, making flickbooks, computer animation and collecting toys. She is currently studying etching.

Mini charmed her readers with her first book, Egg Drop, a wonderful story about an egg that has always dreamed of being able to fly, but doesn’t really know much about making the dream a reality. The only method that seems guaranteed to work is to get to a very high place and then…jump!

Her second book, The Pea and the Princess, is a delightful and fresh take on a traditional tale, and was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway illustration award.

Biscuit Bear, Mini’s third book, won the Nestlé Smarties Gold award in 2004. It is a delicious treat about a little biscuit that comes to life and embarks on a very exciting adventure, and has been well received by the media and public alike.

Traction Man Is Here is a fabulously witty story about a stylish action hero whose life changes when his owner’s granny knits him a romper suit and matching bonnet. Can Traction Man overcome the humiliation of his desperately dowdy new look and rediscover the action hero within or will the burden of the knitted green monstrosity be too great?

Mini’s latest book is The Adventures of The Dish and Spoon. A brilliantly funny and wonderfully inventive story, narrated by one of the principal players – the Spoon himself. Part love story, part crime caper, this is the rags-to-riches and back again tale of the most dazzling crockery-cutlery duo of all time.

創作歷程

Who Wrote That?
Featuring Mini Grey
Published in California Kids!, September 2005

Mini Grey remembers winning second place in the fancy dress competition at a local celebration in her English village. Grey, her sister and a friend dressed as characters from the movie Jaws: Grey’s sister was the glamorous swimmer in the opening scene of the movie; her friend was the fisherman, and Grey, the shark. “I made the shark costume out of a painted sheet,” she says. After learning more about Grey, it comes as no surprise that she chose to be the character requiring the most artistic talent. As soon as she could handle art materials, she drew and modeled her world.

“I remember feeling quite advanced,” she says, “when I was four and worked out how to draw the chimneys of houses properly, and when I was six I had another breakthrough working out how to draw horses’ legs.” Grey developed her vivid imagination early with “let’s pretend” games with her sisters and brother. “I particularly liked making things, especially models of all sorts.”

In college Grey studied Art but switched to English at the University College London when she realized the Fine Arts weren’t for her. She also trained to be a theater designer making sets, painting backdrops and creating costumes—a logical extension of her model-building and costume-making experiences as a child. After months of scraping by financially, Grey left the theater, but took with her a newfound knowledge that she liked working with the children who’d participated in her plays. After the appropriate training, Grey became a primary school teacher and taught in South London for six years. Her after-school classes on model making and pottery were especially popular. But a new idea began nagging Grey.

“When I became a teacher, I was bowled over by the wonderful picture books I found in my classroom and school libraries. I used them as inspiration for classroom projects. . .But I secretly wanted to make my own picture book.” Grey became a student once more for a two-year Sequential Illustration program at Brighton University. Her first book, Egg Drop (Red Fox, 2003) was sold to her tutor’s editor.

Some of Grey’s stories come from asking “What if. . .?” like Biscuit Bear (Jonathan Cape, 2004). She asked her self, “What if I baked a biscuit and it came to life? What would it want to do?. . .I’ve always longed to see something truly inexplicable or extraordinary happen—like see a ghost or meet an alien, or see a cup get up and hover across the table. So having a biscuit come to life is a sort of wish-fulfillment.”

In addition to the “What if. . .” approach to writing, Grey employs a combination of other techniques to launch her stories. “I often start thinking about fairy stories and nursery rhymes because that gives me some characters to bounce around. . .A blank piece of paper is very daunting.” The Very Smart Pea and the Princess-to-Be (Knopf, 2004) is Grey’s spoof on The Princess and the Pea told from the pea’s point of view.

“Sometimes,” says Grey, “I do brainstorm-pictures where I draw as many situations as possible that my characters might find themselves in.” Grey’s newest book, Traction Man is Here! (Knopf, 2005), recently won the 2005 Boston Globe-Horn Book award. The story chronicles the adventure of a toy action figure, perfectly capturing the essence of childhood imagination. Readers will have no trouble visualizing Grey’s sketchbook loaded with harrowing rescues and near misses in which the title character finds himself entangled.

Grey doesn’t usually have to venture too far from her Oxford home to conduct research. “My stories often seem to take place in quite ordinary settings. . .For Biscuit Bear, of course, I had to do detailed research into all types of biscuits and eat them,” she quips. (She especially loves shortbread and anything with chocolate.) “My latest book [TheAdventures of the Dish and the Spoon (Knopf, 2006)] starts off set in the 1930s so I had to research the way that toys and cars and ships and clothes looked then.”

According to Grey, the biggest misconception about writing for children is that picture books are for people who cannot yet read well. “Picture books,” she says, “are a particular way of telling a story two ways at once—through words and through pictures—and can be as simple or as complicated as anything else.”

Grey captures the humor and drama of childhood in her books because she remembers how it feels to be a child. Even as an adult, Grey stays in touch with her inner child: she takes pride in the fact that she was born in the front seat of a mini-car in a car-park in South Wales and she delights in running down corridors. “I love it because everyone always tells you not to, and the longness and thinness of the corridor give a greater feeling of speed.” Her readers can only hope she continues to share her sense of humor.

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