Q&A with Olga Fadeeva

 

 

Olga Fadeeva is the author and illustrator of the new children's picture book Water. She also has written and illustrated the picture book Wind. The books were translated from Russian to English by Lena Traer.

 

Q: What inspired you to create Water?

 

A: First, water is the main substance on our planet and is a very multifaceted topic. And second, it was the opportunity to use a lot of shades of blue colour, which is my favourite.

 

Q: Did you work on the illustrations first or the text first--or both simultaneously?

 

A: I made a plan, and I began to think about different conditions of water I would like to talk about. I chose the most significant and interesting facts and began to work both on the text and illustrations at the same time.

 

There were so many interesting facts that many of them had to be put on the endpapers.

 

Q: How did you research the book, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?

 

A: A lot! For example, I was very surprised that it could rain for more than 200 days in a row. And how much water is used to make one pair of jeans—8,000 liters (2,113 gallons)!

Q: What do you hope kids take away from the book?

 

A: I hope they find the book very visual and understandable. For example, on the “How much water is there on Earth?” spread, I drew water and land in the exact proportion of water and land on our planet.

 

Also, the ratio of salt and fresh water is shown as a small drop in the ocean.

I would like children to understand the really serious problem of microplastics when they read the “How can we protect our planet’s water?” spread, which depicts a whale swimming in the dark water with garbage.

I tried to make all the illustrations as expressive as possible. I think it helps them to better understand the information. Sometimes, it was difficult to leave space for the text because I wanted to paint even more!

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I am working on a new nonfiction book, Sounds. In this book, I am going to write about sounds of music, nature, human, and history. This is such an interesting topic.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Water is a very important book for me. It continues the journey of grandfather and granddaughter, which began in the book Wind (Eerdmans, April 2023), and it is a story inspired by my grandfather, a man who loved the sea very much and who told me a lot about his travels around the world.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb