Video transcript
NSW Premier's Reading Challenge 2024 -Author interview - Sami Bayly

[intro music]

JADE ARNOLD: Now, Sami, you and I had an amazing time at Newcastle High School on the 26th of February to celebrate the launch of the PRC this year.

It was a pretty special day for students and staff at Newcastle High School because it was their first time that they're going to run the PRC, both as a part of their reading program and as an opt-in challenge that any Year 7 to 10 student can undertake. There was drawing. There was laughs. There were a lot of poo stories. How did you find it?

SAMI BAYLY: I loved it. I love telling poo stories if you couldn't tell. Now, we had a great time. We were teaching the kids how to draw a certain part of the poster that you see behind us. But we're going to be doing something different today.

But I was able to share my experience of making this poster, share all of the behind-the-scenes kind of pictures and things like that, and it was a great experience.

JADE ARNOLD: It was phenomenal. I know I was in stitches most of the time, so, I can't wait to see what's in store for today. So, Sami, if you had the chance when you were at school, do you think you would have participated in the PRC, and if so, why?

SAMI BAYLY: Oh, definitely, definitely. I would have loved to. I had a stack of books as a kid from maybe early primary school till late high school. I had a stack of books that I would go to my local library, and I would borrow, and they were all very different styles of book.

Some were non-fiction. Some were fiction. Some were fantasy. Some were kind of silly, little fiction books that were ridiculous and had lots of poo stories, apparently. And so, I would have a stack of books by my bedside table, and I would read a chapter of each book before going to bed. And so, I feel like that is maybe one of the ways that you could do this is certainly by reading different books at a time. Or maybe you would want to separate them entirely. But that's what I did. So, I think I would have been perfect for this.

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah, very much a mood reader vibe that I'm picking up there, which is very much how I read. Or as a lot of my friends like to say, I'm a chaos reader.

SAMI BAYLY: Oh, cool. I love that. I didn't know there was such a thing.

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah. But for all the non-chaos readers out there, it doesn't matter if you read one book at a time or 10 as long as you're having a good time. Now, the unofficial tagline of the PRC is 'Stories that stay with you'. So, Sami, can I ask you, is there a story from when you were in school or when you were a kid that stayed with you now as an adult?

SAMI BAYLY: Oh, I mean, there are so many, especially when you're reading so many different types of books. I have a few. But I think one of the styles of book or an author that I really loved reading their stories was Roald Dahl, and I can vividly remember reading 'The Twits' and 'The Glass Elevator' and having the most vivid dreams after those books as well, and it was just-- those stories have stuck with me.

And I've read them again as an adult, and they are absolutely hilarious, and they're classic. So, I highly recommend.

JADE ARNOLD: It's a lot of fun.

SAMI BAYLY: Yeah. If you're wanting a fun, silly story before bed and some weird dreams, go with Roald Dahl.

JADE ARNOLD: Good recommendation. Now, as you would know, the PRC is all about encouraging students to read for leisure. And I'm going to guess, given that you're an author as well as an illustrator, that reading is probably something that you do a lot of. So, can you tell us what you usually find yourself reading and if you enjoy it, as well as if you think it's important?

SAMI BAYLY: Yeah. Yes, to all. I love reading. It is tricky when you are an author, because sometimes, you are reading your own work quite often, and you kind of get sick of it. You're like, 'OK, I don't want to read my stuff anymore. I want to read other stuff.' And so, it's really special to be able to get an experience just to see how other people write.

You totally look at it in a different way. But I have I have a few bookshelves full of books. There are some weird books in there. And I think one of my favourite books that I have read recently and that I keep going back to-- I can't remember the name exactly. We'll have to try and find it. But it is about different animals and the relationships they have.

Now, I have a book on peculiar pairs, but I think I was inspired by this book. And it goes into detail of a lot of strange relationships. And one of my favourites is about a sea cucumber that has a pinhead pearlfish living inside of its bottom.

And it swims in there and hides inside, and it comes out at night-time to be nice and safe and look for food and then goes back inside during the daytime. And there is the most vivid, scientific detail about that story and so many other strange ones. And for some reason, they're the ones that usually are on the side of my bedside table.

JADE ARNOLD: I'm really seeing the inspiration that those stories have given to your own work, which is-- it's such a lovely connection to see. And very much tracks with all the poo stories that we tend to get from you.

SAMI BAYLY: I know. And I feel like I didn't put any poo in this poster, so, maybe I'll have to add some in, and no one will see.

JADE ARNOLD: Well, you've got the guided illustration for that.

SAMI BAYLY: That's true. That's a perfect opportunity, actually.

JADE ARNOLD: So, Sami, you have 5 books out at the moment, and you've got a sixth one on the way. You've got 3 books in the 'Illustrated Encyclopaedia' series. They focus on 'Ugly Animals', on 'Peculiar Pairs in Nature', and 'Dangerous Animals'. And you've also got the new 'How We Came to Be' series, and in that, you've got the 'Surprising Sea Creatures' and 'Creatures of Camouflage and Mimicry'.

Bit of a mouthful, but amazing books. Now, for someone who has never read your books, sitting out there in the audience today, how do you-- how would you describe them, and who do you think would enjoy them?

SAMI BAYLY: It is tough because they do have a bit of a varying kind of style between them. So, I would say for my 'Illustrated Encyclopaedia' series, it's for kids who love facts, who love learning about weird things, weird animals, and who enjoy reading. Now, the books are kind of set out in a non-fiction platform, and they have a page with the big artwork, which I paint with watercolours. And you'll see some of that process today of how I'm painting--

JADE ARNOLD: And they're gorgeous.

SAMI BAYLY: --with the pencils and how I get there. But the other side and the other page has all of the information about this creature. But I've decided, rather than a wall of text, to kind of break it up into different categories.

So, if you're someone who might be like me when I was younger, and even now sometimes, I struggle to read a bit. And sometimes I get my words mixed up. And so, that way, by having them in different sections, you can refer to any page at any point and go, 'OK, description. This is why it looks this way. Habitat, this is where it lives. Fun facts, conservation status, diet, all of these important parts.' And so, I'll have 60 animals in each of those 'Illustrated Encyclopaedia' books. But with 'Peculiar Pairs', I have 60 pairs.

So, if you love learning about weird things and weird topics, and especially with maybe topics that we might see often, like dangerous animals, I really try to incorporate some different kind of things in there, maybe your not-so-expected dangerous creatures.

But when it comes to my 'How We Came to Be' series, I wanted to change it up a little. And I wanted to make it maybe more sort of angled and structured to younger students.

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah.

SAMI BAYLY: So, this is an entry into animal adaptations and learning about why these animals have come to be the way they are. And when you're diving into the deep ocean and you're seeing such strange creatures, it's kind of hard to believe that they are real. And I wanted to explain from the animal's perspective how they are that way and what's happened over the years for them to look the ways they do.

So, there's a bit of fiction there because the animals speak to me, and I speak back. Now, I wish that could happen because that would make my research job really easy. But that was kind of my wish, and so, it's a different style. And I think there's a bit of everything for everyone.

JADE ARNOLD: So, you've got your narrative, non-fiction style books with your second series, which is very good for people who like a bit more of a narrative. But then if you're someone who likes to read things out of order, you can kind of dive into your 'Encyclopaedia' series.

SAMI BAYLY: Exactly, yeah.

JADE ARNOLD: And for anyone sitting out there today, most of Sami's books are on the 5 to 6 booklist, which means that anyone from Kindergarten to Year 10 can add them to their reading log. And one of your books is on the 3 to 4 booklist. So, there's a lot of choices out there for everyone to read your books.

SAMI BAYLY: Great! Oh, enjoy.

JADE ARNOLD: So, Sami, in a nutshell, can you tell us what inspired you to become an author-illustrator who focuses on these weird and peculiar but wonderful plants and animals? And how did that career path start out for you? Because it's a bit of a unique one.

SAMI BAYLY: It is. And it's actually funny. I don't know if many people believe me when I tell this story, but I promise it's real. The reason that I have become an author and an illustrator, and that I am doing what-- and I'm here today doing what I'm doing right now is because of-- which side is he on? This side over here. The ibis. You can see him pointing over here. Over here. Somewhere here. There we go.

The ibis. So, the bin chicken I owe my career to, which is so weird to think of. So, it actually happened-- so, I was at uni doing natural history illustration. And it's basically where you learn how to draw and paint animals and plants in a scientifically correct way. And you're really learning from the structure.

So, internally, you're learning about how they are made and the skeletal system or the muscular system, and you're kind of going out and you're really learning inside out. And so, we did this-- I did this course for 3 years. And at the end of the third year, we had to choose a certain subject to be able to make our body of work on.

And I was really loving wetlands at the time and still do. And so, I was thinking, 'Hm, what are some cool animals at the wetland?' And I kept coming back to bin chickens and ibis. And this is a few years ago now, maybe about 7 years ago. And during that time, it was really, really extra popular to love bin chickens, but to kind of hate them too.

And it was almost a joke to think that they are silly and stupid and useless and ugly, and all they want to do is poo and eat out of bins, and they're so annoying. And I thought, 'How can I kind of change people's perspective of the bin chicken?' And so, I did a lot of research. And I learned that their habitats were actually being cleared and turned into car parks or buildings.

And so, they were being forced to really go extinct or go to urbanised environments.

JADE ARNOLD: And adapt.

SAMI BAYLY: And to adapt and to find a new purpose for their lives. And so, I think it's a great testament to their survival. So, what they did, they had this long beak that it was usually used to go into wetland kind of little holes and find little crabs. And so, what they started to do was use that long beak to go into bins in cities and find the food.

And so, I wanted to teach that story to people, to give them a different perspective of why animals do certain things. And especially when we consider them as pests or as an annoying thing. So, what I did is I painted this portrait of a bin chicken in a beautiful way. I really wanted to highlight the mucky feathers, the scratches on the beak, the wrinkles, and the vibrant kind of glowing red on the head and sometimes the underarms.

And so, I painted that for this exhibition. And it just so happened that I had entered this artwork into the Australian Museum scholarship at the time, which was running to celebrate the Scott sisters. And if you haven't heard of them, I highly recommend looking them up. So, I entered it into this competition thinking nothing would really happen from it.

And little did I know, I then became the co-winner. So, it was myself and another lady had won this competition. So, they put this artwork into the newspaper in 'The Sydney Morning Herald', talking about the bin chicken, talking about how I loved painting ugly animals. And it just so happened that the head of children's publishing at Hachette-- so, this is the publishers that I work with now-- they were reading the newspaper.

They saw my illustration of this bin chicken, saw my story and my write-up about why we should appreciate ugly animals, and she contacted me and said, 'Sami, we really love your artworks. And we would love for you to make a book on ugly animals.'

JADE ARNOLD: That's amazing.

SAMI BAYLY: That's how it all began. And so, I spent my honours year doing that process of learning how to make a kid's book and the correlation between ugly animals and their conservation status, and I learned so much. So, that-- I owe my career and my life to the bin chicken.

JADE ARNOLD: Well, a very worthy career has come out of that. And we definitely have to appreciate the ibis, don't we?

SAMI BAYLY: I agree. I agree.

JADE ARNOLD: So, one of the most recent illustrations that you've done is this beautiful poster behind us for this year's PRC poster. And you told us all about the inspiration behind that and showed us some of your progress shots when we were up in Newcastle. So, why don't we revisit that?

SAMI BAYLY: So, when I first got a special email asking me if I'd be interested in creating the poster art for this special initiative, I was very excited. I was very nervous because I'd seen the years prior, and they were brilliant. So, I thought, 'Oh, goodness, how am I going to do it? Oh, mine's going to look terrible. How am I going to compete?' And we had a wonderful conversation about maybe what we wanted to see.

We really wanted to focus this year on making sure the art was really directed at kids of a wide age range because this, obviously, is involving kids from Kindy to Year 10. And so, we wanted to make the art suitable for all years. We wanted to make it something interesting to kids but also for young adults like yourselves, and so, what we were looking at was my scientific illustration style. That was something that was important.

Obviously, I draw animals and plants. I draw the occasional human, but it's maybe not the most fun part of my job. I kind of get stressed. I like the animal side of things more. And so, we wanted to really kind of nod at the beautiful authors and illustrators that have come before me, before my time, and the ones that will come afterwards as well.

So, there are so many beautiful books that have been created over the years, and I wanted to look at the different animals, maybe the different characters, different things from those books to see if I could add a little Easter egg in and see-- and I'll ask you later. But have a look while I'm chatting.

The different animals and how maybe they might reference different books. Some of them might be obvious-- possum. Who can think of a children's book that has a possum?

STUDENT: 'Magic Possum'?

SAMI BAYLY: 'Magic Possum'. 'Possum Magic'. Exactly right. Well done. And so, some of them are a bit more obvious. It depends. Some of you might have a memory of a specific book with a koala in it. Some of you might have a specific book you remember. 'Fox' and 'Magpie'. 'Magpie' and 'Fox'.

Some of them might be a bit trickier, and I wanted to make them different levels. I wanted to make some really difficult. And I'll be really impressed if someone can get this one. Because I had no idea that this very popular book series that is still being continued-- yes?

STUDENT: Is it 'Grug'?

SAMI BAYLY: It is 'Grug'. Oh, my goodness. Well done. Well done. I had no idea that Grug started his life as a cycad. I think that's the official term of this plant, and he just popped off the top, and that is Grug. He's one of these things. So, next time you see these things, you can think of Grug. Well done. Oh, my goodness.

So, keep having a look. You might find some things in your brain that you recognise. Maybe they're ones that I didn't necessarily think of, but that doesn't mean that they aren't being referenced. So, it's kind of up to the interpreter. But basically, we wanted to look at different animals.

I provided a list of different animals that I was first really drawn to, and then I provided this beautiful sketch, this one here, on some scrap paper with pen. And I'm spelling things wrong, and I'm scribbling on it. And I actually sent that via email to a very official lady over there. And I said, 'Do you like this?' And she said, 'Yeah, I do, this is cool, I love it,' and I was like, 'Woo! OK.' So, I took that, and we obviously had some, you know, 'Maybe we can incorporate this, this, this,' and then I gave them this more detailed sketch.

So, this is A3 size, And. I wanted to draw it pretty much the same size. I wanted to sketch it the same size as I would eventually paint it because that was going to help me in the long run. And so, I added pretty much these things. But it did seem bare. Because I'd been looking at it for so long, I was like, 'Oh, I guess this is done.' So, I sent it away to get approval, to get comments. And I was going, 'Oh, there's something missing,' and actually, this bird up here didn't even have anything in its beak. It was just the bird.

And I kind of factored in, maybe this is where we'll put the text. And she said, 'Oh, I love it, but I would love more animals.' And I said, 'More animals? OK, OK.' And so, if you see, and you look at this one here, you can see the more things that I was able to add in. So, imagine that that's when we added the book in.

But I added another bird up here. You can have a look, kind of refer. And then I've changed-- we obviously modified this. So, you'll see in a second. Different-- I added an owl. We also added the echidna, tassie, bilby, kangaroo, ibis, and some other bits and pieces, some other details. And I thought that really made a big difference.

So, that's why it's so important to take criticism and to be able to accept it and go, 'You know what? That's definitely for the best, and I'm extremely glad that we made those changes.'

JADE ARNOLD: Can I just say how amazing it was seeing your progress photos, but also, seeing the direction that you took the poster in? Some of our high school students watching might know your little Easter eggs by its technical term, which is called intertextuality. And that's where an author or an artist deliberately makes connections to other texts in their own work.

And they do this to create shape or meaning within the text they're creating. So, knowing that, can you tell us a little bit about the type of meaning that you were trying or hoping to communicate with everyone who sees this poster by referencing all those different Australian children's books?

SAMI BAYLY: Yeah, I mean, from the get-go, I knew how important it was to kind of honour the different authors and illustrators that have come before me and that are here now and that will continue after me. And I really wanted to celebrate that in a fun and kind of indirect way, so, it wasn't sort of in your face.

Some of the ideas I had first was, maybe I could draw all of the covers of the book somewhere. And then I thought, 'Oh, maybe not. Maybe that's a bit too obvious.' And so, I really wanted to kind of think of it in a fun and playful way. And almost all of the books that I read as a kid had some kind of animal or plant in them. That's probably me, who knows?

But I loved that. And so, I thought, 'How about I honour those sort of books in a fun way by finding those key characters and putting them in an artwork,' and obviously, not all of these creatures will interact in the wild in real life together. They're in different habitats and ecosystems. But in this poster, I wanted to make it work. I wanted to make them cohesive and have them all blend together.

So, it's a happy little story in a wetland environment, in a waterhole environment. And that was even based on Graeme Base's 'Wetland'-- sorry, 'Water Hole' book. And I really wanted to celebrate that in a fun and not so obvious way.

JADE ARNOLD: That's amazing. I love how you fit so many references in there. Also, if you'd like to see the full list of all the books that Sami has referenced in this amazing poster, you'll be able to find this on the PRC website on the 'Tips and teaching notes' page.

Now, this might be a bit of a difficult question to answer, but I have to ask it. What was your favourite book that you referenced in this artwork?

SAMI BAYLY: Ooh. Oh, OK, this is tough. This is really tough. How can I choose? OK. One of my favourites would have to be 'Grug'. Because it's kind of, so, not obvious.

I mean, I was like, 'Oh, I love Grug. But how on earth can I put Grug in?' Because 'Grug' is based on Grug. It's this fictional character. What on Earth? Nothing looks like Grug. Until I did my research, and I realised that Grug is based on a plant, on a burrawang tree, I believe it is. And so, you can see Grug here, and he looks a little different these days. But I think that's one of my favourites. Because learning the story of how and what that was based on was just really cool.

But another one of my favourites was 'Fox' by Margaret Wild, I believe. And 'Fox', you would think I would have a fox in here. 'Magpie'. So, there's a beautiful story. If you've read it, you'll know, and it's a tearjerker. But if you haven't, I really recommend. It is such a beautiful book. Such beautiful artworks as well.

JADE ARNOLD: Absolutely.

SAMI BAYLY: And I really thought that that would blend well. And you've got some of the red kind of dirt as well that's in that book. You see it's a lot of kind of red and oranges. But I think they are 2 of my favourites.

JADE ARNOLD: Lovely.