Today we welcome Tom Schamp into The Reading Realm to talk about his captivating new book BEAUTY OF LETTERS…

Welcome, Tom! Before we settle down in The Reading Realm to talk about Beauty of Letters, what’s your drink and snack of choice?

I love a Belgian – micro brewed – beer and let’s pair it with some equally regional food from over here (fresh shrimp croquettes to start and later on maybe a Carbonade à la flamande).

What can you tell us about BEAUTY OF LETTERS?

Most of what I wanted to tell is inside of the book, but I can tell you I’ve always been fascinated by the form and shape of letters and what they may represent (since childhood).

I’m a ‘hand painting’ illustrator and very often I also add handmade lettering to my images… I think there’s only a very narrow space in my brain between words and images.

What inspired the book?

It turns out I’ve been making an alphabet book about every ten years of my almost 40 years of being a professional illustrator!

One in Dutch, one in French and one in German (as a good Belgian), but this time I felt the urge to make some sort of overview of all associations one can make with one letter.

I certainly wanted to avoid the classic form where A is only for Alligator or B just for Bear. I wanted the whole world in it (with all the limitations of the many languages using Western script).

Do you have a favourite illustration from the book?

Never ask an illustrator for his favourite drawing or book since it’s like asking a mum or dad for her/his favourite child!

But I think the Atlas style opening spread for the ‘A’ is still working well to me since it literally illustrates what I mentioned above: the whole world and nothing but the world.

What are your own childhood memories of books and reading?

As one can probably see in my work I was a big fan of Richard Scarry. My parents & elder sister had been living near London before my birth and we had about 3 of his picture dictionaries in English in house while I grew up.

We couldn’t really understand what was written, so we concentrated on the images, which is what I still do to this day 😉

Finally can you describe BEAUTY OF LETTERS in one sentence? 

Another impossible attempt to capture the whole world in one book (as I did for Colours & Wheels before, but this time based on 26 letters).