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Dream Big! Rachel Bright on Snail in Space

February 2nd 2024

About Rachel Bright

Rachel has published 15 award-winning and acclaimed picture books including Slug in Love, The Worrysaurus and The Koala Who Could. She trained in graphics at Kingston University, and then completed a Masters Degree in Printmaking. Her best-known books are the Love Monster series and The Lion Inside (illustrated by Jim Field). Rachel lives on a smallholding near the sea with her fiancé Robbie, their daughter River and a dog named Elvis.

This Children's Mental Health Week, award-winning picture book author and illustrator Rachel Bright spills the beans on her latest book, Snail in Space – a riotous, rousing celebration of self-belief. Illustrated by Nadia Shireen, and starring the one and only Gail the Snail, it's all about the importance of not being afraid to make mistakes, and will help children see that getting a bit lost along the way is normal!

It’s impossible to go through life, I think, without facing some things which are hard to face…without making mistakes, failing, getting up and trying again. Really it is from these experiences we often learn the most, but it can be the most difficult thing in the moment to hold this perspective and understand ‘this too shall pass’ – especially when we are young and are feeling some of these things for the first time.

But when we DO go through these experiences – we can pop out the other side of a hard thing, knowing we foster strength and internal resources we perhaps never knew we had. I think as grown-ups who’ve been on life’s road for a while, this is hopefully a gift of experience we get to share and help our young people with. To remind them in a tough moment that they can do it – that they will be ok – that making mistakes, being afraid of new things or being scared to try, getting a bit lost along the way – they are all normal and part of becoming a strong and interesting person who can go for what they really want, even if that thing is hard. It’s where the feeling of self-belief comes from. Trusting that you have what it takes to get up and get on.

Life is full of bumps, twists, turns and dead-ends all over the place – or to quote Snail in Space:

I love to tackle big ideas like this and wrestle them into the small package of a picture book – but also do it in a fun way – a way that makes the journey of discovery fun and silly and one you want to turn the page on! I think you can take big ‘serious’ ideas and have a lot of fun with them (a bit like life! It’s the joy and play which makes it all wonderful!). That is why this story had to have Gail as the protagonist! I met her before, for the first time, in Slug in Love, my first collaboration with the wonderful Nadia Shireen and I just had to know her backstory – what made her become who she was! And so this curiosity became intertwined with my own remembering – that when you have a really strong purpose and passion and you had perseverance into the mix – amazing, wonderful, life changing things can happen! A lesson I have learnt over and over again in life.

In this story - when Gail sets her stalks on getting to the moon (something no other snail has ever done), she is simultaneously having to blaze a new trail – go places no other snail has gone! And whenever we challenge ourselves, we have to go on an internal journey alongside the external one. A journey which requires us to dig deep and find resilience we didn’t even know we had. And of course this not only benefits us but everyone who observes our journey.

I have been a Gail many times in my life. I’ve been told to do what’s expected – particularly as child). I’ve been discouraged from taking what seemed to others a foolhardy path. I’ve stumbled, tripped, failed, picked myself up and tried again. What human and what creative hasn’t? To my mind, it’s the dusting off and going again that builds strength (especially internal strength), resilience and opportunity – which is what I wanted to capture in this book – albeit in a funny, silly, playful rollicking way. I want my children to feel they can try, fail and try again and smile their way through it all – to enjoy the journey of life as much as possible. My goal is to write soul stories that can speak to all, big and small. Since this is the experience of a picture book in particular – something shared.

On every hero’s journey (the story which is told and retold throughout literature), there is usually some adversity to overcome. It’s the story of us all – big or small!