Extras

Just a few secret things that the books don't show...

Sarah's sketches

When Ellen, the editor at Hodder, asked Sarah to work on Sesame, she first had to think about what Sesame and her friends looked like. And that wasn't exactly easy, because Clementine hadn't provided any descriptions of them, and when Ellen called her to ask, the conversation went a bit like that:

Ellen: So what do Sesame, Toby and Gemma look like?
Clementine: Erm. I have no idea.
Ellen: What's their hair colour?
Clementine: I... don't know.
Ellen: We sort of need that information for the illustrations.
Clementine: I see. Hmm. Sesame could be blondish I guess?

So yes, Sarah had a lot of work. And here are the first sketches she ever produced of Sesame - they're called head shots. She was trying different hairstyles:

She also tried out different types of rollerskates:

And here's the first ever drawing of Sesame, complete with skates:

Clementine's drawings

Clementine draws as a hobby. She hasn't really drawn very much of Sesame (partly because, as stated above, she has no idea what all the characters look like), but here are a couple of drawings. The first one is a very early drawing she did as she was writing the first book, back in 2011. It's a scene from the first chapter in Sleuth on Skates. The second one is a more recent one, influenced by Sarah's take on the characters!

The Cover That Didn't End Up Being A Cover

This was the first rough idea for the cover of Sleuth on Skates. As you can see, it was very red!

Sesame in the Cambridge YHA

The new Cambridge YHA has a wall of local books... Among which Sesame, attempting an escape from the rigid frames!

Trivia

* Tod and Don, the names of the Porters in the Sesame Seade books, are also the names of two real Porters at Christ's College. There are many other Porters at Christ's. The real Don and Tod are good friends of Clementine's. Students in colleges are generally very close to the Porters, who are a bit like surrogate parents...

* Clementine can't skate to save her life. But when she was younger she had a scooter, like Gemma, and used it to go everywhere. She would still use it now, but apparently it's not OK for adults. This is her in the streets of Paris on her scooter, with her little sister on the front. Yeah, not the greatest sense of fashion.

* Sarah's had fun with the illustrations of the books and added many things that aren't in the text, so have a close look. What's Henry VIII holding in his hand on p.174? And do you recognise the painting she's parodied p.195?