We had the wonderful pleasure of welcoming Kate Waterhouse and Sally Spratt to our Collaroy Store to celebrate the launch of their new book Sophia the Show Pony. This is Kate’s debut children’s book, which follows the journey of a delightful pony who loves fashion but has a dream of winning races. The timeless rhyming story teaches young children to believe in themselves and reach for their dreams.
The afternoon included high tea, a book reading, lots of photos and a Q&A lead by our General Manager; Michael Hore, discussing the inspiration and the journey of creating this special book together.
Michael “Where did the inspiration for this book come from?”
Kate “Well it all sort of started with a blog and website that I’ve had for years. I had written a blog post about my favourite children’s books as I have two daughters. Penguin reached out as my background is writing and journalism and they asked if I would ever consider writing a children’s book! This was about four or five years ago. Sally brought the whole story to life! I have always loved her illustrations and she got it perfectly. It was such a fun process, she would send illustrations of each scene as we went and it was so fun to see the development process.”
Sally “It was a lovely collaboration! I think it was an interesting process as I had never done character design before, but I loved that Kate took a chance on me to give it a go. I was sort of learning on the go with Kate and with her encouragement and support, was able to keep evolving Sophia from the very first design to the final.”
Michael “For aspiring artists how did you get into illustrations Sally?”
Sally “I feel I have always loved to draw and play and I think I have been very fortunate to always have a family that has been very encouraging of that. I think the more positive associations with that, the more I wanted to keep going. If any of you love to create, really just enjoy it and if it makes you feel good just keep going. Keep playing!”
Michael “Kate you have a background in horse racing?”
Kate “Yes, so I think I was really drawn to writing a book about a pony because of my background in horses and my mum being a horse trainer. Both sides of my family have worked in the racing industry and when I was a little girl I was horse mad, I was the one going to pony clubs and loved it."
"I had this little white pony called Gypsy and every weekend I would sit there plaiting her mane and often I would go to these horse shows and not win for my riding capability but for the cutest horse. In my mind the horse in the book had to be the same as the one I had as a little girl given by Santa. Santa left her at my mother’s stables and she was the love of my life for many, many years. I knew that’s what the horse was going to be, but I didn’t know what journey she was going to go on. I just knew it had to be fashion and it had to be a pony! And now my two girls love horses so that’s how they spend their weekends going to shows and horse riding, it’s come full circle.”
Thank you to all our lovely guests who attended, it was an absolute pleasure seeing you all in store. A big thank you to Kate Waterhouse and Sally Spratt, we look forward to seeing the next adventures of Sophia the Show Pony.