Wendy Paterson – Honey Ant Readers Illustrator
We were thrilled to be able to engage the talented and energetic Wendy Paterson to illustrate and bring life to the Honey Ant Readers' storybooks. She has certainly been kept very busy!
Wendy is a mother and aunty, but not a nana, who engages learners in the books with her bright, happy colours and expressive characters. She is a talented and much-loved secondary school teacher and innovative artist who demonstrates her great sense of humour throughout the books. Wendy has a great capacity to empathise and understand children from all cultural and language groups.
The children who are reading the books love Wendy's artistic interpretations of Nana, the cheeky dog, the red school bus, the bleeding leg (which luckily wasn't bitten by the snake, but cut by a branch), the ENORMOUS snake wrapped around poor old grandpa, and the baby who gets swopped for another and taken off to a cave. They particularly enjoy counting the higgeldy-piggeldy honey ants on the cover of each HAR book.
What a treat they have in store when they receive HAR 16 and follow the exploits of clever big sister, who reads the caterpillar story to her siblings when home from boarding school. We specialise in happy endings with a little moral sting in the tail, so fear not, all will be well! The children like to nominate themselves as one of the characters in the pictures, and then read about what that particular child does in the book. Luckily Wendy has them all wearing very well defined bright patterned clothes so it’s easy to follow the exploits of individual children or 'kids'.
Wendy's 'Colours' cards and 'Bush tucker' cards are beautiful, with large, clear, colour drawings on each card. Wendy's drawings are so impressionable that we have used them to develop cards for medical practitioners and therapists to use, called 'Conversation' or 'Therapy' cards.