Redstone Press presents the wonderful work of artists under 13, with entries from David Shrigley

On 22 September, a new book will be unveiled to the world from Redstone Press. Though designed and edited by Julian Rothenstein – the founder of the small publishers – A Gift, as the cover explains, is exclusively from artists, photographers and poets under the age of 13. The back cover offers more detail: “A Gift reminds us of all the things that we have missed, mislaid and forgotten [...] the book is an invitation to wonder, creativity and play.” Frequently laugh-out-loud funny and occasionally heartbreaking, its young authors meditate on moments of daily kid life like waiting for dinner, hoping to have the perfect parent-teacher meeting, and worrying about your dragon being hurt in a storm.

As a small press, the process of curating A Gift presented its own set of issues for Julian – namely, that the publisher is unable to pay normal copyright fees. While always on the lookout for sources of illustration, it was through being “locked down (and of a certain age)” that the publisher had “the luxury of properly exploring Pinterest, Instagram and Twitter” for the first time, Julian tells It’s Nice That. Many of the works in A Gift were found on Instagram or Pinterest. The publisher adds: “Having discovered a good collection of children’s paintings from the 1930s in New York, I had a fairly good basis for research and just had fun over the year.” David Shrigley also offered a helping hand. The visual artist recently wrote on Instagram that the book contains a few images from his ‘collection’, “mostly found and given to me by my old friend [Rupert Harris] when he worked in a charity shop”.

Flicking through the pages of A Gift, readers can expect to find selfies, paintings, daring snapshots of sleeping parents, poetry and notes full of emotion. Julian offers his personal highlights: “Mrs Edwards (page 80) makes me laugh [an entry depicting a drawing and poem on a school teacher], as does the drawing on page 75 [an expressionist portrait, another teacher]."

Julian continues: “I found it very hard to find poems that had any joyful feeling from English schools in spite of many hours spent in the Festival Hall’s Poetry Library: it’s as if all English kids are all depressed and the immigrant experience is clearly not a very happy one. But I found a wonderful blog in New Zealand run by a poet who gets children to write wonderfully funny and interesting stuff – that was a breakthrough.”

The final book ranges widely in tone, but at its core, it aims to “spread a little joy”, says Julian. To discover more about A Gift, check out the Redstone Press shop.