From a smudge to winner of best children's book

By Linda Morris
Updated August 18 2017 - 12:36pm, first published 12:17pm
Children's book writer and illustrator Bob Graham has won a Children's Book Council Award for an unprecedented seven times for a picture book which describes a mother and child huddled in driving rain on the edge of a freeway. 17th August 2017. The Age Fairfaxmedia News Picture by JOE ARMAO
Children's book writer and illustrator Bob Graham has won a Children's Book Council Award for an unprecedented seven times for a picture book which describes a mother and child huddled in driving rain on the edge of a freeway. 17th August 2017. The Age Fairfaxmedia News Picture by JOE ARMAO

Bob Graham's prize-winning picture book Home in the Rain began as a smudge of pastel colour on a piece of copy paper. "It turned out to be a skyline of hills and then I put some dark cloud over it," he said.