Eva has shared with us both her artistic process in creating her eye catching illustrations and how the story developed over time…
The idea began with early sketches of a pink elephant. I was playing with expressions like “the elephant in the room” and the Dutch saying about an elephant in a porcelain cupboard, similar to “a bull in a China shop”. The character was bright and big, and at the same time trying to blend in, quite impossibly. In those early drafts, the humour of an oversized elephant trying to squeeze into human spaces helped me explore the heart of the story without it becoming too heavy.
As the story developed, in collaboration with my editor and art director at Andersen Press, we chose to change the elephant into a child. Mia, in her pink jacket. The visible exaggeration softened, but the emotional core remained. The book became quieter and more open to interpretation. The difference Mia feels is never named. It might resonate with neurodivergence, friendship struggles, cultural differences or simply moments of not fitting in. Keeping it open allows more children to recognise something of themselves in her.
One line repeats throughout the book: “but nobody seemed to notice. Nobody seemed to care.” In the early spreads, those words feel painful and isolating. As the story progresses, their meaning shifts.
The world around Mia does not dramatically change, but her understanding of herself does. That subtle shift was important to me. I did not want to offer a simple message about “just being yourself”, but rather to show how belonging can grow from self-acceptance and connection.
For educators, Different can open conversations about the difference between fitting in and belonging. It invites reflection on empathy, inclusion and the classroom environment itself. What helps someone feel at ease? What does it mean to feel seen?
Visually, my process combines traditional and digital techniques. After developing rough sketches and dummy spreads, I redraw the final line work in pencil using a lightbox. The drawings are scanned and built up in greyscale layers in Procreate. I combine analogue and digital textures before printing each layer separately on a risograph machine. The final images are printed in three Pantone colours, creating the vibrant, slightly imperfect quality of the finished spreads. The neon pink that appears in the book is a quiet echo of the original elephant that started it all.
Across all three books, my hope is that children feel seen and comforted by the realisation that they are not alone in their feelings. I hope these stories can offer moments of connection, and provide a gentle stepping stone into conversations that may feel vulnerable, but are deeply important.
Many thanks to Eva for sharing with us how she uses words and illustrations to hopefully offer readers opportunities to recognise and make space for emotions in themselves and others. You can find out more about both Eva’s new book Different and her previous titles Where Happiness Begins and When Sadness Comes to Call using the links below.
