Trevor's Hairy Adventure

Author Sarah Gray and illustrator Steven Coates bring a children's story with a difference - prepare to blast off with Trevor the Tortoise!

Trevor is the most amazing tortoise you could ever hope to meet. His shell was old and creaky and he had worn out all his feet. But in the darkest part of the night, Trevor does something quite fantastic. He fires up his rocket boots and blasts off on a secret, dangerous mission into the jungle!

Will he be able to complete his task while avoiding the sharp claws of a ferocious lion?

Join him on his hairy adventure to find out!

Sarah Gray of Northumbria, UK

Author and illustrator duo, Sarah Gray and Steven Coates, based in the North East of England bring you their brilliant Trevor the Tortoise adventures. Primary school teacher, Sarah, and her computer animation expert brother, Steven, started working on Trevor’s Hairy Adventure nearly five years ago with more stories to come including the wonderful Trevor's Toothy Tale.

Here's what Sarah has to say: I have always loved children’s books and picture books in particular, I like how they open up the imagination and anything is possible. In the job I do, I read all sorts of books to children on a daily basis and I share books with my own children all the time, we laugh together, get caught up in exciting adventures and I began to think about the unusual animal characters who often appeared. I started to think about a magic animal that would maybe do something out of the ordinary and quite like how tortoises plod along carrying their home on their backs, seeming slow, old and wrinkled, but what if they are not actually like that at all? Then I began to wonder what could actually be secretly under that shell? I thought of all the things my son loves such as rockets, mobile phones, computers, superheroes etc. and thought, ‘What if this tortoise, Trevor, secretly blasts off on secret missions to help animals? The possibility of a magical flying tortoise—how exciting!’

Steven Coates

Computer animation expert, Steven, started working on Trevor’s Hairy Adventure nearly five years ago with more stories to come, including Trevor's Toothy Tale.

Here’s what Steven has to say about it: My sister Sarah is a primary school teacher and wrote a children's book while on maternity leave which she shared with me. I loved the story, so, in secret, I did a few tentative illustrations to see if I was capable of producing illustrations to do the story justice, once Trevor came to life on the screen I knew I could do it and everything else was just a matter of time…it took me 9 months to illustrate in total but the look on Sarah’s face when she opened it on Christmas morning and seeing her read it to my niece and nephew and seeing their enjoyment has made it all worthwhile.