Tilda Teaches
Teaching resources are available here.
About the Series
Tilda Teaches centres around the trials and tribulations of Tilda, who wants nothing more than to follow in her parents’ footsteps and be a teacher when she grows up – the World’s Best Teacher in fact! And in preparation for her chosen career, she loves teaching her friends Binky and Harry new skills, from cartwheels to folding paper chatterboxes. Binky and Harry are Tilda’s T.E.A.M. – Totally Excellent Awesome Mates. They live on the same block, go on family camping holidays together, and share lots of fun and adventures.
Aside from being fantastic practice for when she grows up, Tilda’s teaching is often a great distraction from her everyday problems, and a way for her to cope with whatever challenges school or life have thrown at her. Whether she’s feeling jealous of her friends, or left out of the group, a new project for Teacher Tilda is always the perfect solution…until things get out of control and Tilda is forced to face her problems head on.
Tilda’s creativity, Binky’s big brain and Harry’s endless energy make for some crazy, funny antics that young readers aged around 5-8 will love.
Author’s Inspiration
I began developing the Tilda concept in June 2018, so it was almost two years from idea to publication. I had done a workshop about six months earlier with Sally Rippin, who talked about the way that Billie B. Brown is really Sally’s six year old self. So I asked myself who I was as a kid, and the answer was immediately obvious – I was the kid who absolutely wanted to be a teacher when she grew up.
I was always playing schools and making worksheets at home. For birthdays, my parents used to buy me flashcards, and ‘Good Work!’ and smiley face stamps for marking my worksheets (I still have them!). I had two aunties who were primary teachers, and I went to work with both of them on my days off school. I also remember running a Skipping School at lunchtime to teach my friends how to jump rope.
Once I started to develop the concept, I didn’t have far to look for other ideas, as my daughter Rafi seemed to be following in my footsteps – she’d been teaching our babysitter Hebrew, and making worksheets for her to take home for homework!
I also noticed in my years of teaching Year 1 that there seems to be a few girls like this in most classes, so I knew that even if my readers weren’t necessarily ‘Tildas’ themselves, she would definitely be a familiar character type.
About the Illustrator
Katie Alexander grew up in suburban Melbourne, going to school with a sketchbook in her hand at all times. She was always ready to draw any situation she would see, be it a classmate, a tree or the monkey bars.
After school was finished, Katie went on to study Animation and Interactive Media at RMIT, and began working in animation in 2017. Katie has worked on children's series such as Kitty is Not A Cat and Jar Dwellers SOS. Working in animation, Katie is able to get to know the right sort of poses and cartoony styles that lend themselves well to illustrating children's books.
The Tilda Teaches series is Katie's first published book as an illustrator, and Amy’s words made it so easy to know just how Tilda, Harry and Binky would behave and act together. It was very fun to be able to bring the characters to life in each illustration.
Katie was very drawn to working on Tilda Teaches, getting to show the school and the way Tilda and her friends interacted and saw the world. She especially loved being able to draw all of Tildas fabulous outfits, and getting to play with Tildas hairstyles from chapter to chapter.
Much like Tilda, Katie loved being a teacher amongst her friends, coming up with new projects, dances or plays for everyone to get involved with - so getting to illustrate these books was like stepping back in time!
When she’s not illustrating or animating, Katie loves snuggling up on the couch of her Brunswick apartment and watching the sunset with a good cup of tea, her partner and her fluffy cat Lieutenant Dan.