PUT together two friends, unexpected questions, spare time and what could sound like a recipe for a quiz over a very long afternoon has turned into publishing opportunity for two Mount Martha men.
Don Kemp has always written poems, but it was time spent fishing and boating with his two sons that prompted one of them, Rob, to suggest a book based around questions youngsters ask.
Rather just asking a straightforward question, the Kemps decided to frame it around “With friends like these, who needs an anemone?”
Kemp then approached his friend Perry Fletcher with the idea of producing a series of children’s books and Fletcher, an artist, took to it like a fish to water.
With a friend like that, what could go wrong? Not much, if the three books the pair have produced to “fantastic feedback” from their circle of friends rings true.
Kemp, a coach for South Mornington Football Club, met Fletcher more than 20 years when he asked him to engrave trophies.
“I asked him to do the illustrations for the books and from then on it was a great fun project for both of us,” Kemp said.
“Perry is one in a million and with a passion to produce masterpieces and help people and this was his first attempt at creating a book.
“It was an incredible amount of work for him, but he did it with a smile and the ‘journey’ was rewarding for both of us.”
As well as the anemone book, Kemp and Fletcher have produced With friends like these who needs a Humpback Whale? and With friends like these who needs a Crocodile?
While Kemp composed the words it was Fletcher who hand wrote them on the pages and painted the illustrations, using coloured marker pens.
“I first thought they would be considered children’s books, but now I believe they are more a middle grade book,” Kemp said.
“The books take the reader on a colourful fun journey through the ocean and the African savanna and are educational in that they are all based on particular symbiotic relationships in the animal kingdom.”
The books pose some interesting questions, but only readers will know the answers.
First published in the Mornington News – 1 November 2022
