Neil Gaiman’s What You Need To Be Warm, Published as Picture Book

Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Bagram Ibatoulline, Benji Davies, Beth Suzanna, chris riddell, Daniel Egnéus, Majid Adin, Marie-Alice Harel, Nadine Kaadan, neil gaiman, Oliver Jeffers, Pam Smy, Petr Horácek, refugees, Richard Jones, Yuliya Gwilym

Quill Tree Books and Bloomsbury UK will publish the poem What You Need to Be Warm by Neil Gaiman as a picture book highlighting displacement.

In 2019, Neil Gaiman tweeted “What reminds you of warmth? Calling on your words/thoughts for both inspiration and inclusion in a special Twitter story I’m writing for UNHCR & @TwitterForGood
to support Syrian @refugees this winter. Reply to this tweet with #KnitForRefugees. The final story will be knitted into a unique scarf created by @Kniterate and designed by @refugees – to stand as a symbol of our solidarity. I believe the power of your tweets can help those who need it most.”

And it was. But it didn’t stop there. And this autumn, Quill Tree Books and Bloomsbury UK will publish the poem What You Need to Be Warm as a picture book highlighting displacement, adapted by Neil Gaiman for the format and drawn by thirteen artists. including Oliver Jeffers for the cover, and Chris Riddell, Benji Davies, Yuliya Gwilym, Nadine Kaadan, Daniel Egnéus, Pam Smy, Petr Horácek, Beth Suzanna, Bagram Ibatoulline, Marie-Alice Harel, Majid Adin and Richard Jones as artists.

“I am thrilled that the words originating from a single tweet back in 2019 will now become pages in a book, imagined through the eyes of 13 wonderful artists,” Neil Gaiman stated “I hope that the ideas and memories collected and woven into this poem and the beautiful images they’ve inspired will be shared far and wide, as the humanitarian message is even more urgent today than it was when I typed that original tweet.” T And you can hear Neil read it, right here.

WHAT YOU NEED TO BE WARM
by Neil Gaiman

A baked potato of a winter’s night to wrap your hands around or burn your mouth.
A blanket knitted by your mother’s cunning fingers. Or your grandmother’s.
A smile, a touch, trust, as you walk in from the snow
or return to it, the tips of your ears pricked pink and frozen.

The tink tink tink of iron radiators waking in an old house.
To surface from dreams in a bed, burrowed beneath blankets and comforters,
the change of state from cold to warm is all that matters, and you think
just one more minute snuggled here before you face the chill. Just one.

Places we slept as children: they warm us in the memory.
We travel to an inside from the outside. To the orange flames of the fireplace
or the wood burning in the stove. Breath-ice on the inside of windows,
to be scratched off with a fingernail, melted with a whole hand.

Frost on the ground that stays in the shadows, waiting for us.
Wear a scarf. Wear a coat. Wear a sweater. Wear socks. Wear thick gloves.
An infant as she sleeps between us. A tumble of dogs,
a kindle of cats and kittens. Come inside. You’re safe now.

A kettle boiling at the stove. Your family or friends are there. They smile.
Cocoa or chocolate, tea or coffee, soup or toddy, what you know you need.
A heat exchange, they give it to you, you take the mug
and start to thaw. While outside, for some of us, the journey began

as we walked away from our grandparents’ houses
away from the places we knew as children: changes of state and state and state,
to stumble across a stony desert, or to brave the deep waters,
while food and friends, home, a bed, even a blanket become just memories.

Sometimes it only takes a stranger, in a dark place,
to hold out a badly-knitted scarf, to offer a kind word, to say
we have the right to be here, to make us warm in the coldest season.

You have the right to be here.

What You Need to Be Warm is published on the 31st of October with Quill Books in the US and on the 26th of October with Bloomsbury in the UK. Gaiman will be donating his royalties from the book to the UNHCR.

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