An Accordion Book doesn't open, it unfolds. One side is filled with beautiful watercolour images of an animal: sometimes in motion, sometimes at rest. The other is filled with text – poems, descriptions, invocations – inspired by the same animal. Together they work as spells to summon the animal's spirit. Jackie Morris has painted them using antique watercolours, some from boxes which hadn't been opened for over 150 years, woken from their slumber with a single drop of water.
Fox and Otter are the first two Accordions in a series that will go on to include Hare, Hound, Owl and Cat among many others.
Jackie Morris is a writer and artist. She studied illustration at Hereford College of Arts and Bath Academy and has written and illustrated more than fifteen books. The Lost Words, co-authored with Robert Macfarlane, won the Kate Greenaway Medal 2019, and Morris was nominated again for The Unwinding in 2021. She lives in Pembrokeshire.