Every meal is a celebration in Maggie Cowles’ first picture book, Table!

In artist Maggie Cowles’ illustrated world, food isn’t just something we eat, or something wonderful to look at (although her renowned table portraits certainly are a feast for the eyes). For Maggie, the everyday occasion of a meal is a way to tell meaningful stories of memories shared and time spent together. A sense of narrative is something that ties all of the illustrator’s work together; no matter how tasty her neatly placed plates and colourful ingredients look, there are always the traces of something more at the table.

It makes a lot of sense that these still life stories of Maggie’s have taken the form of her first children’s picture book Table!, published by Chose Commune last month. A lively, unseen collation of many of her delightful foodie illustrations all in one, the artist book doubles as a playful visual game for kids, where little readers are encouraged to search for small hidden elements within each scenes. “For kids there’s the immediate play of searching and finding,” the illustrator says. “I love when a child pauses you from turning the page because they’re still taking everything in.”

Designed and laid out to reward different kinds of observation, the book’s pages are a joy for adults too. “For adults, I hoped it would offer a slower, more observational experience,” says Maggie. Her warm domestic scenes echo the feeling of long evenings spent at the dinner table or lunchtime laughter with friends – the labour of love that comes with cooking for one another. “But there isn’t a correct way to read it,” she says. “It belongs just as much on a child’s bookshelf as it does on an adult’s coffee table.”

Table! invites you into a number of different culinary universes. From Maggie’s drawing Franklin then Degraw, which references her childhood and the two streets the artist grew up on in New York City, to her piece Demeter’s Baking Lesson, which comes from a series the illustrator made around Greek myths that revolve around food. “I’ve always loved D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths, and that influence still finds its way into my work,” says Maggie.

Amongst all of her delightful scenes however, one of Maggie’s favourite moments in the book is actually its final spread: a blank table for you to fill with your very own. A surface for drawings from little ones keen to get involved in Maggie’s world, this was another invitation from the illustrator for readers to participate in something beyond the page, to facilitate others in their own foodie tabletop narratives.

The book is now available to order on the Chose Commune site.