Bob Graham's prize-winning picture book Home in the Rain began as a smudge of pastel colour on a piece of copy paper. "It turned out to be a skyline of hills and then I put some dark cloud over it," he said.

"I put some trucks on a freeway in there and I decided to put a red car, which looked quite vulnerable in the circumstances, and lots of rain, and I went on from there.

Picture book of the year, Home in the Rain, by Bob Graham.

"I kept asking myself questions and I'm thinking who are the people in the car, they are on a journey obviously, they are going from here to there, I knew that much and for the rest I just stuck in there to see what was happening myself. It's like dropping a stone in water and watching the circles spread out.''

From smudge to final draft, Home in the Rain took eight months. On Friday the heart-warming tale that takes place on a freeway next to a petrol bowser was named the Children's Book Council of Australia's Picture Book of the Year.