David Salariya

DAVID SALARIYA is an illustrator, book designer, author and publisher.

DAVID SALARIYA was born in Dundee, Scotland. Educated at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee. He illustrated books for Reader’s Digest, Kingfisher Books and then went onto conceive, design, write and produce series of books for Franklin Watts: Time Lines, X Ray Picture Books, How Would You Survive?, and New View, before founding The Salariya Book Company in 1989 and it’s imprints: Book House, Scribblers and Scribo, he conceived the ideas for projects, designed, and sometimes wrote many of the prizewinning titles The Salariya Book Company published under it's imprints: Book House, Scribblers and Scribo, notably the bestselling You Wouldn’t Want To Be…, Inside Story, Spectacular Visual Guides, Peculiar History, Graffex and many, many other series.

The subjects and genre David Salariya tackles as a designer and creator of books is wide ranging from content creation and writing books for babies, preschool, non-fiction, fiction for older children, along with many different kinds of art instruction books. Whether exploring the mysteries of history, unravelling the secrets of science, or sparking the imagination, the books David Salariya has created have inspired, delighted and educated a few generations of readers and have captivated readers of all ages around the globe.

DAVID SALARIYA has written under the pen name of David Stewart and Max Marlborough.

MILESTONES and AWARDS

1989 The Salariya Book Co founded

1990 Times Educational Supplement Award for Senior Information Book of the Year.

Inside Story Egyptian Pyramid, Created & Designed by David Salariya. written by Jacqueline Morley,

illustrated by John James & Mark Bergin. Published by MacDonald Young Books.

1992 (British Book Design & Production Awards).

The X-Ray Picture Book of Your Body, created and designed by David Salariya.

Published by Franklin Watts. Winner of the non-fiction category of the BBD

& PA (British Book Design & Production Awards).

1995 Times Educational Supplement Award for Senior Information Book of the Year.

Keeping Clean (A Very Peculiar History) Created and designed by David Salariya, written by Fiona Macdonald (Joint winner with Dorling Kindersley).

2000 The Times Educational Supplement Award for Senior Information Book of the Year

Fast Forward: Rainforest. Created and designed by David Salariya, written by Kathryn Senior and illustrated by Carolyn Scrace.

2007 English 4-11 Awards for the Best Children’s Books Runner-up WOW (World of Wonder) Rainforest, Created and designed by David Salariya. Written and illustrated by Carolyn Franklin. Published by Book House

2009 All About Me by David Salariya.

All About Me: A Baby’s Guide to Babies published by Random House. CCBC’s (Cooperative Children’s Book Centre, School of Education, University of Wisconsin, Madison. USA) choices 2009.

2009 English 4 -11 Best Children’s Illustrated Book Awards (Runner up)

The Secret Journal of Victor Frankenstein: On the Workings of the Human Body

created, designed and written by David Salariya.

2009 Independent Publishers Guild. Publisher of the Year: The Salariya Book Company. (runner up).

2010 Independent Publishers Guild, Children’s Publisher of the Year: David Salariya - The Salariya Book Company.

2011 ALCS Information Writers Award (Runner up).

Gorilla Journal Created and designed by David Salariya.

Written and illustrated by Carolyn Scrace

2013 ALCS Information Writers Award.

The Danger Zone: Avoid Working on a Medieval Cathedral! Created and designed by David Salariya, written by Fiona Macdonald and illustrated by David Antram (UK Book House - USA Scholastic)

2014 The Danger Zone: Avoid Being Sir Isaac Newton! (Runner up)

Created and Designed by David Salariya2015 Junior Design Awards (Shortlisted)

2015 Junior Design Awards (Shortlisted)

You Wouldn’t Want To Live Without Antibiotics! Created and designed by David Salariya, written by Anne Rooney, illustrated by David Antram.

2017 David Salariya inaugurated the Stratford-Salariya Children's Picture Book Prize for unpublished picture book writers and illustrators

2020-2021 Spark! School Book Awards (7-9 Fiction category).

The Long-Lost Secret Diary of the World’s Worst Samurai!

Series created and designed by David Salariya,

written by Tim Collins and illustrated by Isobel Lundie.

2021 SME National Business Awards 2021

David Salariya - The Salariya Book Co ‘Children’s Publisher of the Year’ award.

2022 Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts

David Stewart is the ‘pen name’ of David Salariya when writing mostly history and general information books, he used David Stewart to distinguish from his work as his work as David Salariya in the creation and design of books for children.

Amazon Questions for David Stewart/David Salariya

February 2020

Question

Can you share insights into your creative process when developing and designing children's book series like "You Wouldn't Want To be"? What inspired you to create such engaging content?

DS Answer

I had created a series called ‘So you want to be… ‘ which had eight volumes and had the usual subjects Knight, Egyptian Princess, Viking Raider, Roman Soldier and so on. I started to try and think up more titles but came up with more titles you wouldn’t want to be - so the series title was born. I did design the sample double page spreads on the way to Gatwick Airport - the Bologna Book fair was after the school Easter Holidays that year so I was heading to Venice for Easter and then going to Bologna. I knew enough about ‘Egyptian Mummies’ to work out the two spreads and then posted the page designs to the illustrator Dave Antram.

Question

The "You Wouldn't Want To be" series has gained international success with translations into 35 languages. How do you approach creating content that resonates with children across different cultures and languages?

DS Answer

Children are children wherever they are in the world and are interested in the fictionalised story. The books identify a person and they are ‘You’ so all the things that are happening in the book are happening to the reader’.

Question

As both David Salariya and David Stewart, you've contributed significantly to the children's literature landscape. How do you balance the creative process of designing visually appealing books with crafting compelling narratives for your written works?

DS Answer

It’s easy if you have an idea and can show that as a visual - I found in my early career - by designing concepts and synopsis and showing what I intended - the publishers at the time could see what the book was going to look like. I always liked working out complete books in miniature. Text was of secondary importance as I used latin letraset to indicate where the text would be.

Question

What motivates you to write under different names, such as David Salariya for designing and commissioning and David Stewart for authoring books? How do these personas allow you to explore different aspects of your creativity?

DS Answer

The use of the two names is slightly historical. I wrote a book about the Vikings for Giunti in Florence in a history series I had created and designed. I just used my middle name to distinguish it - I felt it looked a bit odd to be doing everything! The book was then published by Simon and Schuster in the UK and USA who translated the book from Italian to English and they credited David Stewart.

Question

Over your career spanning more than thirty years, how have you seen children's literature evolve, and what challenges and opportunities do you think authors and designers face in today's digital age?

DS Answer

When I started working in publishing the internet did not exist, books were designed on paper and a ‘paste-up’ was sent to the printer. The change I suppose now is the emergence of the individual and the interest in the author and illustrator on social media, so they need to be able to be ‘performers’ almost in a religious way counting how many ‘followers’ they have and when appearing at Literary Festivals being asked ‘what kind of a show’ they do. When I started it was the reader who was most important - the cult of the personality of author and artist is something that has emerged following in the footsteps of authors like JM Barrie and Enid Blyton who would have been at the forefront of that type of publishing as best selling authors but now anyone who publishes is expected to have a social profile.

Question

The "You Wouldn't Want To be" series often tackles historical and educational themes in a humorous and engaging manner. How do you strike a balance between providing educational content and ensuring that it remains entertaining for young readers?

DS Answer

The ‘You Wouldn’t Want To Be …' series certainly tackles very gloomy subjects - life can be hard and a way of learning about the hard lives of people in the past can help children understand and prepare for later in life when they start to find out the realities that life can be hard, brutal and short.