CHILDREN'S literature has been dominated in recent years by a certain wizard.

But while publishers are scouring the length and breadth of the land for the next Harry Potter, Alan Gilliland draws inspiration from earlier masterpieces, such as Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz.

His wonderfully crafted debut, The Amazing Adventures of Curd the Lion and us! in the Land at the Back of Beyond, will enchant children and amuse adults in equal measure.

It revolves around Curd the Lion and his friends, Pilgrim Crow, Sweeney the Heenie and O'Flattery the Snake, in their quest to recover a brooch stolen by the Great Raven and help Henry and Henrietta, the twins wrongly accused of stealing it.

The whimsical story is beautifully illustrated by Gilliland's own pencil drawings, which hark back to a time when children's books weren't part of some huge merchandising drive.

Improbable characters leap from the page amid a sea of riddles and rhymes as the tale unfolds, and, like so many great works of children's literature, Gilliland wrote it for his own children.

"I wrote the original story nearly 20 years ago, after
my fourth son, Oliver, was born," he says.

"We used to go for day trips to the Yorkshire Dales and the Moors, and it was on one of these trips, as we were winding through the woods, that we noticed a small cliff and half-way up there was a cave. The story is about this place."

The crag in question is on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales, although he won't reveal exactly where. He says that he already had some of the characters in mind when he returned with his children to explore the cave.

"We went in as far as we could; we discovered side tunnels and other nooks and crannies, and while we were scratting around in the mud looking for fossils, one of us picked up a bone that turned out to be a hyena's."

Gilliland, a father of six, started his career as a photographer working for the Northern Echo before becoming a political cartoonist and moving to London, where he spent 18 years as graphics editor at
the Daily Telegraph.

He worked on the book during his spare time.

"Once I came up with the idea, the illustrations followed and the story came trundling along, although I've rewritten it several times and added characters," he says.

Then, three years ago, he quit his job to set up his own publishing firm to concentrate on writing and illustrating his books.

He is working on several others and has included the first three chapters of a second adventure, The Ineffable Emperor O, Travels in the Land of Nod in the Great Sea of Slumber, at the end of Curd the Lion.

Gilliland takes great pride in his illustrations and makes no attempt to hide the influence of past masters of what has, sadly, become a dwindling art.

"I love all the classic children's authors and the wonderful illustrators, people like Arthur Rackham, Charles Robinson and EH Shepard. Those books were treated as objects of art
and the paper was 10 times better than what is used today."

He says that although his book can be enjoyed by children, it's not solely written for a younger audience.

"I don't believe in categorising books, they should be for everyone. I enjoy reading Wind in the Willows just as much now as I did when I was a kid.

"There are certain books that are timeless in terms of their appeal, and I'm hoping that my book will be one of these," he says.

"I hate books that patronise children. We should be trying to stretch them. When I was a youngster reading Alice in Wonderland, there were some words I didn't understand, but that didn't make me stop reading it; if anything, it made me come back to the book again and again."

For Gilliland, putting this book together has been a labour of love.

"I found myself caught up in the playfulness of it all. It's a great escape, you just have a pencil and piece of paper and away you go," he says.

"The story isn't a philosophical treatise or anything like that, it's full of riddles and nonsense and hopefully people will enjoy it for that."