Charlie Mackesy on the Success of 'The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse' | This Morning

[Music] in a year of unparalleled uncertainty kindness has never been more important so it's no surprise that charlie macassey's inspiring messages have resonated with so many of us well the author and illustrator sold over a million copies of his book the boy the mole the fox and the horse and as his drawings get turned into an animated film charlie is here to tell us more hello charlie lovely to see you as always hello hello it's extraordinary isn't it really you've sold more than a million copies and originally your publisher only intended to print 10 000 copies i mean this is exceeded all expectations and i imagine yours too yeah i thought we might sell 10 copies i mean 10 000 was quite ambitious and so yes you know i mean it's such a surprise isn't it you know everything is but for me that's still it's an ongoing shock i think do you think certainly and we've talked about this before for for me it it was one of those things that absolutely keyed in to my uncertainty how i felt how i felt about the situation that we all find ourselves in and is that why it took off you think it was what we needed i don't know i i wish i i wish i could give you a clear answer um maybe it's a mix of things you know um i mean i think what i've loved about it and what i what my favorite thing about it is hearing um from people who have it and i get sometimes an email from someone who's 90 um so you know they read it to their grandchildren and then i get a message from a school saying that they printed them out and stuck them on their walls to help the kids get back so i mean i think it's it's maybe it just reaches different people in different ways you know um but i wish i knew to be honest um well it really resonated with phil so much that you illustrated a picture for his book and it was it was such a beautiful one actually the illustration was gorgeous and the word that you chose for it was i'm wearing new clothes and they don't quite fit which is a quote from the book and i just wondered what made you pick that bear um whit pic what the words that you put with it when you sort of think right which should i illustrate and then and then you chose that that part particularly why that resonates i tend to react from instinct or gut and just do it and don't think too hard yeah um so yeah that's an honest answer good choice it's a good choice you did it for me um is it um is it the same with the with the actual creation of the book is it one of those things that just came out of nowhere um yeah i think something you know how we we work from somewhere within us um and that i can't really explain a lot of things about existence and certainly for me the book came out of something uh so so kind of quiet and deep and i just sort of scribble away from somewhere inside of me and produce these drawings and and you know they there they are um and the four characters in the in the book the uh the boy the mole the fox and the horse they're all different aspects of the same person yes they are yeah definitely i mean essentially i think i and even then you know i didn't even know that that was the case but in retro when i looked back at what i kind of thought oh yeah so you know the mall is greedy for cake like me always wants you know to when things are difficult to grab something that's delicious and then the the boy is inquisitive and the fox is damaged and withdrawn um and doesn't is find difficult to trust and the horse is the deepest bit of us it's probably the soul or the wisest part of us maybe i don't know um but yeah i think they they're all different aspects of us well there are so many ways that we can enjoy it obviously there was the original book there was on instagram where you put a lot of your drawings there but then there was the audiobook now it's being released into this vinyl which is just such a lovely thing to have yes yeah well i don't know many people have you know ways of playing the vinyl record i mean i don't but it'd be nice to have it i'll just stick it on the wall somewhere it's beautiful i mean it's i think the thing with you is that sort of quality is important it actually does look like it's absolutely stunning like a real collector's item um but but at the same time you've got you're in preparation now for the animated short movie yeah i mean you know i'm i'm i'm in this barn and i'm you can't see but i'm just in a sea of hundreds of drawings um half-finished things trying to do storyboards for it and working out you know how to develop them and yeah it's been you know i'm completely and utterly out of my depths of it um i mean i usually am anyway but particularly now um uh but it's fun you know and it'll take a while um uh yeah it's lovely being able to use music and and movement with them you know to develop them and a bit more um so is that developing the characters a bit more sort of explaining that too yeah because you know like i think the book is is uh it's very concise and and i think you can you can when friends tell me when they've read it that they they they imagine filling the gaps with it if you like and i think with the film you're you're you're saying a lot more and how they move how they interact um the new things can happen um and also the development of their characters so you know we discover a bit more about what they really feel and what they fear and what they hope for no no no no um no i do too um i i also love look at your instagram and okay just occasionally you'll do an illustration and leave it at a bus stop for someone to find um yeah that's a lovely thought i do i i mean i i think for me you know people going about the success of the book for me that the real success is hearing from how how it has moved people or it's helped people and so for me that the real joy is being able to leave books around the place with notes in them or prints in bus stops or in telephone boxes or whatever you know um you know yeah i love doing that have you found three have you found there is one specific illustration or set of words that has uh has been the most popular the one that most people want uh well i think during this time probably you know the one that hospitals have used a lot and schools um and you know individuals being uh you know what the boy says what's the best thing you've learned about storms and the horse says that they end and um and i think you know we want this storm to end and so just to have just a simple line drawing saying yeah that was one i did for kids to color in so i thought i'd take the color out and then post them so people can schools can print them out so this there's no rainbow there but that was for school children to color in but yeah so the idea is the storm will end you know um that's your dog there not your stomach because you need trouble if it is you need breakfast yeah he's demanding his breakfast um thank you so much the boy the mole the fox and the horse special edition vinyl is out on the 11th of june always lovely to talk to you thank you you

Channel: This Morning

Views: 19,602

Rating: 4.9754601 out of 5

Keywords: this morning, holly willoughby, phillip schofield, this morning funniest, Holly & Phillip funny

Id: HHw2Ml8mD_s

Length: 7min 33sec (453 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 11 2021