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ENTRY TYPE: new
WORK TITLE: DUCKS OVERBOARD!
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://www.markusmotum.com/
CITY: Brighton
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY: British
LAST VOLUME:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in Wiltshire, England.
EDUCATION:Graduated from the University for the Creative Arts, Maidstone, 2012.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and illustrator.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
[open new]Based in England, Markus Motum is a children’s book author and illustrator of part English and part Norwegian heritage—the reason his name is spelled with a k. He loved drawing as a child and even illustrated his own comics on folded-up pieces of oversized paper, which he sold to neighborhood kids for fifty pence. His family moved frequently during his childhood, to English cities including Nottingham, Reading, and Somerset as well as to foreign countries including Belgium and Germany. He found day work during his early adulthood, but memories of the joy of drawing led him to return to school. He studied illustration at the Maidstone campus of the University for the Creative Arts and graduated in 2012—the year that NASA’s rover Curiosity landed on Mars. Several years later Motum published his debut self-illustrated picture book, Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover.
Narrated by Curiosity itself, the story takes the reader all the way from designs and prototypes, to the manufacture of the robot in California, to preparations for the momentous launch in Florida. Once exploring the landscapes on Mars, the rover takes pride in its purpose and accomplishments. In the mixed-media illustrations, Motum emphasizes Curiosity‘s creature-like appearance, complete with metal limbs and a camera for an eye. The back matter includes a glossary and a time line of Mars missions. Speaking with Space contributor Doris Elin Urrutia about the awe he felt upon witnessing humanity’s latest accomplishment on Mars, Motum related, “It was just so amazing, almost far-fetched. It’s almost like truth being stranger or more wonderful than fiction, in this case: that we can send a nearly 1-ton rover to another planet and have it land basically perfectly to carry on its mission.”
School Librarian reviewer Tanya Jennings affirmed that readers will “marvel and wonder as they explore this fascinating book,” which makes use of “an eye catching layout, a strong colour palette and distinctive graphics to convey its message.” A Publishers Weekly reviewer observed that the illustrations “cleverly recall art popular during the infancy of space travel–muted colors and spare, geometric patterns.” The Publishers Weekly reviewer called the book “handsome” and “engaging,” while Urrutia called Curiosity a “mesmerizing introduction” to the rover’s mission.
Motum keeps the focus on science—and a personified object’s point of view—in his second book, Ducks Overboard! A True Story of Plastic in Our Oceans. The book follows an innocent yellow plastic duck that gets made in China, loaded onto a cargo ship, and washed overboard along with some 28,000 other bath toys on the way to America in 1992. While on the sea, the duck bears witness the troubles afflicting the ocean: a whale swallows a plastic bag, a sea turtle gets stuck in a fishing net, and a vast expanse of waste has collected as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The book ends with eco-friendly activities for kids and a list of organizations doing good on the high seas. A Kirkus Reviews writer called Ducks Overboard! an “awesome odyssey” with an “urgent message,” offering “fresh incentive for young recyclers and eco-activists” to step up and make a difference.[close new]
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2021, review of Ducks Overboard! A True Story of Plastic in Our Oceans.
Publishers Weekly, January 22, 2018, review of Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover, p. 87.
School Librarian, winter, 2018, Tanya Jennings, review of Curiosity, p. 244.
ONLINE
Markus Motum website, https://www.markusmotum.com (April 25, 2022).
Space, https://www.space.com/ (October 1, 2018), Doris Elin Urrutia, “‘Curiosity’ Tells the Mars Rover’s Story with Beautiful Artwork.”
Markus studied illustration and graduated from the University for the Creative Arts, Maidstone. His debut picture book Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover, was published by Walker Studio in 2017 and Candlewick Press in 2018. The book went on to be nominated for several awards, including The Klaus Flugge Prize, and The Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize.
Markus Motum is a half-English, half-Norwegian up-and-coming illustrator. He studied Illustration at the University for the Creative Arts, graduating in 2012, and it was during his studies that he re-discovered his love of picture books.
He really enjoys creating big colourful books and illustrations for readers to get sucked into. Markus is currently based in Brighton, UK.
Markus Motum
As a child
I was born in Wiltshire, though my family moved away from there when I was very little. In fact we moved about quite a lot growing up. From Nottingham to Reading, to Somerset, and even Belgium and Berlin, I went all over the place as a child! This all meant changing schools a lot, and each time I left behind a great set of friends (this was before Facebook so it felt pretty permanent!) but my brother and I always landed on our feet and made great new friends. My love for drawing definitely began in my formative years – I would spend hours drawing until my pens rang out. My brother was the more natural academic!
As an adult
I started drawing at a young age like a lot of children – these drawings were overwhelmingly of either dinosaurs or super heroes – but admit I stopped as I got older. I never altogether stopped being into art and creativity, but I didn’t quite know how to channel it. Fast forward a decade and I was working in a job I really wasn’t enjoying, and remembered how much fun I had all those years ago drawing and just creating things. I wondered if I went back to uni and worked really hard, if I could somehow turn that into the job, surely that would be the best job ever? I ended up studying Illustration at the University for the Creative Arts, Maidstone and graduated in 2012.
As an author-illustrator
Nothing too crazy or off the wall here – I’m quite traditional in that I like to work at home in my studio (which also happens to be the living room), listening to music, accompanied by a tea or coffee, surrounded by books and other inspirations. Curiosity is my publishing debut.
Ten things we didn’t know about Markus Motum
Favourite colour has to be blue – the kind of blue you see in the sky on a nice sunny day. Living in England I don’t get to see it much!
Even though Curiosity is about space and science, my science grades in school weren’t very good!
Favourite food is pizza. I think I could probably eat it every day for the rest of my life if I tried. Though I should probably leave that to be the subject of a fictional picture book down the road, rather then try it myself…
Technically, Curiosity isn’t the first story I’ve sold. When I was young, I would draw entire comics on A4 pieces of paper stapled together, then set up a stall outside my house on the pavement and sell the issues to other children in the neighbourhood for 50p an issue. I’m not sure if that was a bargain or a rip-off.
After I had finished writing and drawing the initial draft for this book, I put it on my bookshelf and left it there for over a year, believing no one would be interested in reading it!
My first name is spelt with a "k". This is the Norwegian way to spell Markus. The other name my parents considered for me was Magnus, which definitely sounds more Norwegian!
I’ve lived all over the UK, in Belgium, and even Berlin prior to its re-unification.
At a young age I’d convince my cousins to draw alongside me. One time we used a massive roll of paper to draw one continuous 10 metre long drawing.
I’m not very good at finishing lists!
Markus Motum
Author
Agent: Jordan Lees
Markus Motum is a half-English, half-Norwegian children’s illustrator. He studied Illustration at the University for the Creative Arts, graduating in 2012, and it was during his degree that he rediscovered his love of picture books. His debut picture book Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover was published by Walker. The book went on to be nominated for several awards, including The Klaus Flugge Prize and The Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize.
'Curiosity' Tells the Mars Rover's Story with Beautiful Artwork
By Doris Elin Urrutia published October 01, 2018
"Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover" by Markus Motum
"Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover" by Markus Motum. (Image credit: Candlewick Press/Walker Books, used with permission)
The photos and illustrations in the children's book, "Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover" (Candlewick Press, 2018), offers an enchanting read for all ages as it tells the story of the interplanetary project.
Markus Motum is both the illustrator and author of the detail-filled book about NASA's Curiosity Rover, which is operated by the Mars Science Laboratory at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
Curiosity landed on Mars in 2012. Since then, it has celebrated over 2,000 Martian days exploring our solar system neighbor, found evidence of Mars' ancient geology and its past water along the way. If you want to know how this mighty mission began, check out Motum's book for a mesmerizing introduction to its journey.
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In an interview with Space.com, Motum discussed the inspiration for his first-ever children's book, as well as how he kept the artwork truthful and creative. [Best Space Reads for Kids]
In "Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover," author and illustrator Markus Motum creates a Times Square scene in which pedestrians tune into the news of the rover's landing on the Red Planet.
In "Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover," author and illustrator Markus Motum creates a Times Square scene in which pedestrians tune into the news of the rover's landing on the Red Planet. (Image credit: Candlewick Press/Walker Books, used with permission)
Space.com: How did you first become enchanted by space and Mars exploration?
MARKUS MOTUM: I wouldn't say Mars exploration in particular. I think as a kid, I was just as interested in the idea of space and astronauts as any other child. The idea that we've actually been to the moon and back was, you know, a pretty big thought. I'm not sure I really comprehended [it] as a child.
But for Mars and Mars exploration specifically, it really was back in 2011 and 2012 as Curiosity started to hit the news … that's when I really thought [about the project] and it kicked into overdrive for me. The Curiosity mission itself [was] sort of like a vessel for my interest in that particular aspect of space.
Space.com: Do you have any background in astrophysics, or do you come purely from an artistic background?
Motum: Yeah, it's definitely the latter. No experience in any of the former. I was one of those millions of people who read about Curiosity in the news and experienced it from my home. And the mission itself got kind of swept up in my imagination and really inspired me. So it pretty much just comes from [that]. ... I don't fully understand the intricacies and all the details and how it's all done. I'm just absolutely in awe from an artistic and from a narrative point of view of what the mission was out there achieving.
Space.com: Was there one particular thing about Curiosity that got you thinking that it would be a really great topic to transform into a children's book?
Motum: I think it was a combination of a few things. Because, obviously, Curiosity wasn't the first rover to get to Mars. There's been a fair few before, actually, [including] Spirit and Opportunity. I don't know if it was a combination of the sheer daring of the landing; you know, there had never been a sky crane maneuver attempted before. It was totally new, [executed] specifically for this mission.
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It's the first rover to land on Mars when the internet had really come into its own. I think Spirit and Opportunity [both landed in 2004] were about a decade beforehand. And so now you had the internet and Twitter really kind of acting as this huge platform to get this story out there ... I think with the wider spread of the internet, you could really see the reach that this mission seemed to have.
I think a big part of it as well is, when you look at Curiosity herself, she's looking back at you. You can see her eye — her camera — on her head on top of the neck. She had human-like features. When I was drawing the book, I didn't have to add eyebrows or mouth to kinda get any emotion across in the book, because it's all just there. So I think the fact that you can look at Curiosity and kind of see a face there, I thought that was quite unique. Quite human, I suppose. I think it's just a combination of all of those things that just really made [the mission] jump out. [We've Lost Contact: "Chasing New Horizons" Book Excerpt]
Space.com: In the book, there's a long description about the techniques engineers used to send the probe all the way to Mars. Did you feel that an educational approach was the best way to get people excited about Curiosity?
Motum: It's definitely a fine line ... I'm hoping the book works on a few narratives because, you know, it is educational. There's quite a lot of information in there. But at the same time, what gave me the idea to get behind writing the book in the first place was just actually the mission as a narrative, as a story. It was just so amazing, almost far-fetched. It's almost like truth being stranger or more wonderful than fiction, in this case: that we can send a nearly 1-ton rover to another planet and have it land basically perfectly to carry on its mission. And you know, I think the reaction it has for people on Earth — how much it meant to them when it successfully landed, when it sends back pictures — I think that kind of human element was just as inspirational in telling the story as the science behind it as well.
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This is one of the first pages in Markus Motum's children's book, "Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover." The tale is written from Curiosity's perspective.
This is one of the first pages in Markus Motum's children's book, "Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover." The tale is written from Curiosity's perspective. (Image credit: Candlewick Press/Walker Books, used with permission)
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Space.com: What techniques did you use to highlight the themes of "Curiosity"?
Motum: I don't know if I did anything specifically. But Curiosity was the first rover or anything that technical I've had to draw before. So one of the biggest challenges of the book was simplifying Curiosity, because there's a lot of moving parts. … It sort of has its own style. Rather than draw every single nook and cranny, I've had to simplify her to fit into this children's book, [and] at the same time, not change anything about her. So that was a unique challenge: To find the parts in there which made Curiosity, Curiosity.
[There's] another part of the book where I really had to make sure the detail was scientifically accurate. That's not something I have had to really think about [before]. For one of the original drawings, I think the spread where she's just landed on Mars, the lighting was actually off. We had a Mars expert come on board, and he pointed out that when Curiosity landed on Mars, the lighting wouldn't have actually looked like that. So that entire landscape had to change just to make sure that it held up to scrutiny.
Space.com: What was the most challenging aspect of writing the narrative of the book? Were there any particularly challenging technicalities?
Motum: Yeah. There were a number of processes throughout the mission that were pretty difficult to kind of [describe], because you don't want to simplify things too much. Because then, you're skipping over too much and you're no longer being accurate. Finding that fine line did take a lot of back and forth between myself and Candlewick [Press]. They were of great help there.
And just another part was … after I sent the first draft in, one question which I hadn't anticipated … was, Ah! Curiosity was built in JPL in California. Why did they then move her to Florida to the Kennedy Space Center, where they fired her off to space? There are launch pads on the West Coast, and that's such an obvious question, but that never even occurred to me. So I had to basically find out why ... and even that reason was hard to succinctify into a sentence or two of a children's picture book. So there were just lots of little challenges.
The actual overall narrative of the story, the broad strokes of it, were sort of the easiest part of it — the exploration side of it: Why do you want to explore, and so on. That was kind of the easier part that wrote itself, really. [New Book Shows Children How New Horizons Got to Pluto]
A view of "Vera Rubin Ridge" provided NASA's Curiosity Mars rover: This is a detailed look back over the area where the rover began its mission inside Gale Crater, and of more-distant features of the crater. The right-eye, telephoto-lens camera of the rover's Mastcam took the component images on Oct. 25, 2017.
A view of "Vera Rubin Ridge" provided NASA's Curiosity Mars rover: This is a detailed look back over the area where the rover began its mission inside Gale Crater, and of more-distant features of the crater. The right-eye, telephoto-lens camera of the rover's Mastcam took the component images on Oct. 25, 2017. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
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Space.com: You said you spoke with experts to make sure it's accurate. Did you have any particular reactions from them? Were any of them enthusiastic?
Motum: I think everyone was pretty enthusiastic and very complimentary about it. I think, I guess I didn't quite appreciate the level of detail which was needed to actually portray something. One of the other interesting parts came up where the actual mountains, which are depicted on Mars, were a bit too pointy [in the visuals]. The style of my work is quite angular, so [I had] lots of real, triangular-like mountains. And so, I literally had to shave down the mountains on Mars to get it as accurate as possible to what was actually out there.
Space.com: And finally, has the "Curiosity" book inspired you to take on other science book projects?
Motum: Oh yes, absolutely. I'm kind of going through the motions of trying to come up with an idea at the moment … something which is going to leap out and grab me quite as much as Curiosity did. Whether it's space or something that's a bit closer to Earth, I'm not too sure yet.
Editor's Note: This interview was edited for length. Motum's 2018 book "Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover" is available for purchase from Amazon.
Follow Doris Elin Salazar on Twitter@salazar_elin. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
Motum, Markus
Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover
Walker Studio, 2018, pp56, 15 [pounds sterling] 978 1 4063 7468 1
According to Clara Ma, a sixth grader who named a NASA Rover Robot,
'Curiosity is the passion that drives us through our everyday lives. We have become explorers and scientists with our need to ask questions and to wonder.'
Readers will want to marvel and wonder as they explore this fascinating book about the travels of a moving robot in space. It uses an eye catching layout, a strong colour palette and distinctive graphics to convey its message. Opening with a double page spread of Mars, it explores the story of Curiosity, a roving robot who landed on the red planet in 2012 and is still there gathering data for NASA.
Narrated by Curiosity, the book enables the reader to take the journey through the robot's eyes from origins to prototype to manufacture to preparation to transportation to flight to landing. The double page spread structure works well as it enables the reader to grasp the immensity and scope of the project.
Motum uses an array of dusky grey, brown, purple, pink and blue shades to illustrate the desert surface of the planet with a red orb for the exterior view contrasted with the darkness of space and the cold clinical ice blues and whites of the lab. Labelled diagrams demonstrate the construction of Curiosity and a map is included to give the reader a sense of location. The illustrator also captures the drama of the take-off well by changing the orientation of the image and including an exclamation of 'Blast Off'.
While the book is informative and well researched with a chronology and glossary at the back, the only quibble is the lack of consistency with the size of the font while the choice of coloured text on backgrounds such as blue on black and pink on black could make it difficult for some readers to navigate. That said, it's an engrossing read which would be an asset to any school library and will appeal to readers who prefer non-fiction.
Tanya Jennings
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 The School Library Association
http://www.sla.org.uk/school-librarian.php
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Jennings, Tanja. "Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover." School Librarian, vol. 66, no. 4, winter 2018, pp. 244+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A568840299/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=a443d8b3. Accessed 12 Mar. 2022.
Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover
Markus Motum. Candlewick, $22.99 (56p)
ISBN 978-0-7636-9504-0
The Mars rover Curiosity narrates her own story in Motum's handsome and engaging children's book debut, from her construction in a clean lab in California to her multistage launch into space and landing on the red planet: "years of testing were needed to make sure everything would work correctly the first time. After all, if something were to go wrong on Mars, no one could come and fix me." Motum's mixed-media illustrations cleverly recall art popular during the infancy of space travel--muted colors and spare, geometric patterns compose often-diagrammatic illustrations. One close-up details the rover's many parts: "Just like you, I have a shoulder, elbow, and wrist." With one of its cameras resembling a large eye, Curiosity appears lifelike, almost E.T.-esque, in keeping with the first-person narrative. The book's large trim size and expansive scenes work in tandem to evoke the vastness of star-filled skies and reddish Martian landscapes. Originally published in the U.K., this accessible look at interplanetary exploration will appeal to a broad range of young space enthusiasts. A glossary and timeline of Mars missions is included. Ages 8-12. (Mar.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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"Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover." Publishers Weekly, vol. 265, no. 4, 22 Jan. 2018, p. 87. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A525839868/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=ceba4635. Accessed 12 Mar. 2022.
Motum, Markus DUCKS OVERBOARD! Candlewick (Children's None) $17.99 9, 28 ISBN: 978-1-5362-1772-8
A ducky’s-eye view of an ocean rapidly becoming more polluted.
Speaking for 28,000 bath toys that were washed overboard on the way from Hong Kong to Seattle in 1992, a yellow plastic duck tells its story—from rolling off first a Chinese assembly line and then later a huge cargo ship at sea to, long afterward, floating at last in a child’s tub after being plucked from the flotsam on a littered beach. This plot may seem familiar to readers of Eve Bunting’s still-in-print Ducky, illustrated by David Wisniewski (1997). What’s new is how, while bobbing over busy ocean depths, past colorful fish and undulating jellies, Motum’s narrator witnesses a whale swallowing a plastic bag, a struggling sea turtle tangled in a fishing net, and the vast swirl of waste plastic dubbed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The author goes for a broad view in both wide-angled illustrations of litter floating or washed ashore and in adding notes about ocean currents, the value as well as hazards of plastics, and other related topics to his urgent message that our oceans are in trouble. A set of activities and organizations at the end add fresh incentive for young recyclers and eco-activists to get off the stick. Workers in early scenes have Asian features; the child and their dad at the end appear to be White.
An awesome odyssey that also makes a telling point, both worthy of repeated iterations. (Informational picture book. 6-8)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Motum, Markus: DUCKS OVERBOARD!" Kirkus Reviews, 15 Aug. 2021, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A671783020/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=0b5f68a3. Accessed 12 Mar. 2022.