Mrs Noah’s Song (available here) is the newest collaboration from the celebrated pairing Jackie Morris and James Mayhew. The picturebook tells an enchanting story about song returning to the world, with stunning collage-style artwork by James Mayhew. It is the third in the bestselling Mrs Noah series, following Mrs Noah’s Pockets and Mrs Noah’s Garden. The book highlights how nature and birdsong can inspire music and art, and also shows the importance of silence and listening.

Read on for a guest post in which illustrator James Mayhew discusses the importance of music on a personal level, the capacity of song to remind humans of their roots and to help to lay new ones, and how his earliest experiences of the music and nature inspired the third Mrs Noah book….

Guest Post: In Harmony: Nature, music and art

by James Mayhew, illustrator of Mrs Noah’s Song (available here)

One Spring, when I was about ten years old, I woke up in the night, and decided to creep downstairs. I tiptoed through the kitchen and unlocked the door. The sky was almost green, and the grass in the garden was wet with dew. In our garden was a large, very old apple tree, big enough for a treehouse, and a hammock. There is a special magic about being somewhere you shouldn’t, especially when the rest of the world is asleep. I lay in the hammock and watched the sky change. One by one the birds awoke, singing their little hearts out, louder and louder! A thrilling sound, bursting with life and music; an exultation. It was transcendent and never forgotten: my first drawn chorus.

When I first chatted to Jackie Morris about her ideas for the third Mrs Noah story, Mrs Noah’s Song, I described this memory. She very generously wove it into the story. When she first read it, I cried. It touched on something very deep inside – obviously my memory, but also something more – the beauty of the natural world, so often smothered in mankind’s noise, or threatened with environmental damage. But it also spoke of the power of music, of the arts, and of communication, and sharing.

My love of music started in childhood. My parents had a few old LPs at home… Rossini’s overtures; Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf; Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. Many times I listened, imagined, and drew, loving the imitations of birdsong, or the sounds of the sea. The music told me stories. It conjured illustrations and stories in my head. About 15 years ago I began to present concerts of classical music, with fabulous orchestras, for family audiences – with me painting illustrations, live on stage, to illuminate the music I loved so much. This led to my book Once Upon A Tune, published in September 2021, an anthology of stories told in music. It’s been wonderful, inspiring and joyous to see the response from schools, creating incredible topic work. I’m constantly amazed by the imagination and dedication of teachers, doing such a fantastic job to inspire children. I know from my own work in schools, how focused and concentrated children can be when painting to music. I’ve seen autistic children inspired, and elective mutes begins to speak. Music is a powerful tool in education and learning, as well as bringing great pleasure and a sense of community, of belonging.

The Mrs Noah books were initially inspired by Benjamin Britten’s extraordinary community-based children’s opera “Noye’s Fludde”, in which Mrs Noah is a very particular character. Jackie loved the idea of giving Mrs Noah a voice, and the stories grew. I’d already designed a production of the opera for the Cheltenham Music Festival in 2013, with over 200 local school children taking part. It was an incredible experience, so it was, perhaps, inevitable that the stories should end up celebrating music and song. Both books were created using collage, cut from hand painted and printed papers, and incorporating sheet music too, a technique I love, and great for children to try too.

Songs and music of many lands and of many species of creature can be a wonderful way to bring people together in this divisive world. Music connects us, it heals us, and it lifts us up. But it also links to so many areas of our lives – Art and Literature of course, but Science, History, Geography – they can all be found in music. Now Mrs Noah’s Song can open another door on the way music sews the world together. Mrs Noah is a refugee, starting a new life. She misses her old home, her family. She sings their songs, from the past. But she knows that her children need music too. Not just her own music, but the music of nature, of birds. I think it’s her way of making the children feel they belong in their new land. Mrs Noah also connects them to her past, and her heritage. Mrs Noah may only sing for her family, but it symbolises a very important and fundamental truth – that like birds, we humans need music. It’s how we communicate; a universal language.

Mrs Noah’s Song by Jackie Morris and James Mayhew was published by Otter-Barry Books on 9th June 2022.

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Order Mrs Noah’s Song online from Amazon or Bookshop.

Many thanks to James Mayhew for visiting our blog and sharing the guest post with us.

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> Visit our Reading for Pleasure Hub

> Browse our Topic Booklists

> View our printable year group booklists.

> See our Books of the Month.

Mrs Noah’s Song (available here) is the newest collaboration from the celebrated pairing Jackie Morris and James Mayhew. The picturebook…