A NEW children\u2019s book is encouraging kids to colour outside the lines.<\/p>\n
Titled Outside the Box, the book is the first release by local author Xander Savage, who said the idea grew out of another artistic pursuit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been making gender-neutral greeting cards since the start of the year as a release from my work as a nurse at Ballarat Base Hospital,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was designing covers for them, and my daughter Shiloh wanted to colour them so I made a colouring book for her.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve been my sanity projects from work, but this is something for my kids, really.\u201d<\/p>\n
The book comprises 35 images inspired by with ideas from Savage\u2019s three children, including a corgi in space and a mushroom on roller skates.<\/p>\n
Having stemmed from creating gender-neutral works, Savage said the book was consciously written to carry those themes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at the cover, you\u2019ll see references to the trans and non-binary flag,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe images were designed to be coloured in a way to represent non-binary birthday cards or Transgender Day. There was definitely always a queer undertone to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Savage said the project allowed them to be creative in the presence of their children, while developing a less kid-friendly book in their alone time.<\/p>\n
Their next work, Proud, will be an erotic colouring book of queer slurs, and is slated for release later this year.<\/p>\n
Outside the Box released through self-publishing outlet IngramSpark, which Savage said helped them gain confidence in releasing further works.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next project will be even more of a personal statement and take ownership of some of the queer insults out there,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut before I could bring that out, I had to see whether it was going to work in this self-publishing format, for what I wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOutside the Box proves to me that it can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A NEW children\u2019s book is encouraging kids to colour outside the lines. Titled Outside the Box, the book is the first release by local author Xander Savage, who said the idea grew out of another artistic pursuit. \u201cI\u2019ve been making gender-neutral greeting cards since the start of the year as a release from my work […]<\/p>\n