Paula Xiberras
Coral Tulloch’s ‘The Journey’ found its way on to my review desk accompanied by a jar of jam, so I wanted to spread (pardon the pun) the richness of this fantastical tale.
I spoke to the Coral Tulloch, the author and illustrator, recently and she is every bit as bright and colourful as her name would suggest. Coral tells me her mum chose her name from the woman’s weekly baby book and that Coral was a popular name of the 50s and 60s as the colour was used as decor for the kitchen and other rooms.
And so we can see an analogy where Coral takes us into the many rooms of our imagination and illuminates them with amazing colour and richness. We join her hero Bernard (named after her ex husband author Bernard Lloyd because the name is a bit unique and so suits perfectly her original fictional Bernard) and learn of his love for crumpets and plum jam (hence the delicious freebie).
Bernard’s mission is to search for a perfect plum jam recipe and the pole of inaccessibility. Along the way learning the most important ingredient needed in the recipe of life is right in front of, or should that be behind our eyes!!
Coral has adopted Tasmanian as her home after a visit as a schoolgirl to the Cadbury factory caused her to fall in love with in addition to chocolate,the landscape, including the extraordinary mountains and she found a sense of home and uniqueness even if the beauty surrounding her is sometimes distracting. Coral also managed to convert her friends to Tassie’s its magic having them visit regularly.
Coral has also worked on a successful book with Alison Lester about Macquarie Island called ‘One more Island’ that has netted 4 awards including the CBCA Eve Pownall Book of the Year Award.
‘The Journey’ has also netted quite a fan following with one fan frenetically moulding figurines of the novel’s garden whinger characters.
Coral is at the moment illustrating a book about Lord Howe Island, where she is drawing in black and white the story’s stick insect.
‘The Journey’ is out now published by Walker Books.
