I believe your first book, The Flower King , emanated to a degree from a time when you worked for a market garden. Another allegory for the illimitable power and imagination inside all of us. I don't see why a children's book should show you the children. There's no reason not to show them in context, and how they relate to their own environment. After all, children s fiction shows adults it has to.
Separation is an artificial thing, and can only be decided by the reader.
Apparently, to prepare yourself for the scene in MapHead2 in which MapHead envies the penguins huddled together in companionship, you immersed yourself in emperor penguin culture, and while writing Mister Spaceman spent months surrounded by pictures of the moon. The sun is in my thoughts at the moment, in preparation for a new story, Ultraviolet . Many writers remain suspicious of the computer, especially for first drafts. I know that you do all your writing straight to screen. I print out at the end of each day, as it helps to see things on paper.