DescriptionMore background on I’m a Submarine In this highly original debut book, designer and nature enthusiast Nigel McHardy takes young readers on a fun journey that is all about the joy of pretending and questioning what you see.As an illustrator and designer, Nigel had been mulling over the idea of a book for over a decade. A redundancy finally pushed him to get serious and flesh out the concept, and Oratia Books agreed to take on the project.While the primary characters in the book are a seagull and a whale (or is it a submarine?) the beautifully illustrated story is as much about identity as it is the ocean.“It’s also about how people perceive the world differently. While people may look similar on the outside, we’re certainly not the same on the inside. That idea was very much on my mind when I developed this story.“I wanted to share the idea that we should have the freedom to choose our own identity,’ says Nigel. “Having kids myself encouraged me to put this into a book.”Another inspiration is his father’s shipwreck. In 1968, he was aboard the Maranui when it sank off the coast of the Coromandel in a terrible storm. Only a third of the crew survived. It’s something Nigel only learned about in the past few years, and it had a profound impact on him. There’s a shipwreck in an underwater scene in the book, and Nigel used photos of the Maranui as a subtle tribute to that part of his family’s history.
