Wednesday 4 August 2021

The Seed of Doubt - Guest Blog Post from Richard Jones

The Seed of Doubt
bIrena Brignull and illustrated by Richard Jones


A little boy dreams of a world beyond the farm where he lives – a world full of mountain ranges, oceans and cities, where he could do anything. But one day he plants a seed from which doubts start to grow. Instead of thinking of all that he could do, he thinks more of what he could not. Can he overcome his fears and chase his dreams?

Richard Jones has very kindly agreed to share his piece on The Seed of Doubt with us. Click here for Richard's website.


Richard Jones on The Seed of Doubt

The Seed of Doubt is the second collaboration between Irena Brignull and myself. Once again, Irena has created an exquisite, tender story about following our dreams and overcoming those little seeds of doubt that try to push them aside.
Just like The Child of Dreams, the tale celebrates the love between a parent and child and explores the need and belonging they feel for each other. This time it’s a father and son that take centre stage.


As the boy grows, the ambition and expectation he felt as a small boy is replaced with doubt and concern. As Irena so brilliantly puts it ‘…as the seasons passed and the boy grew bigger, his dreams got smaller. Instead of thinking of all that he could do, he thought more of what he could not.’ However, later in the story, encouraged by his father, the boy throws off the learned uncertainty and once again climbs tentatively towards his dreams.


At the end of the book, the boy triumphs! We see him reach the top of a tall tree to find the world and his dreams laid out before him.

Each page of the book began life as a grubby page in a sketchbook. Sometimes the first sketch bears no resemblance to the final spread, but in this case, the final art stayed pretty close to the original concept.
The same spread doodled embarrassingly loosely into the digital book layouts.
The final artwork!

And that’s about it for this little blog!

Enormous thanks to Louise, Denise and the wonderful team at Walker Books. Love and thanks to my agents Arabella and Freddie for doing the difficult and complicated bits so I don’t have to.

And thank you Irena, for writing another captivating story.

- Richard Jones

A special thanks to our guest this week, Richard Jones!
The Seed of Doubt is now available in paperback from all good booksellers.