Catherine Rayner (born 1982) is an Edinburgh-based British illustrator and writer of children's books. [1] She was born in Harrogate and grew up in Boston Spa, later studying at Leeds College of Art and Edinburgh College of Art. [2]
She won the Kate Greenaway Medal in 2009 for Harris Finds his Feet, [2] and has been shortlisted in 2007, 2011, 2012, 2015.
In 2014, Norris, The Bear Who Shared was named by The Sunday Times as one of the 100 Children's Modern Classics of the past ten years. [3]
The Carnegie Medal for Illustration is a British award that annually recognises "distinguished illustration in a book for children". It is conferred upon the illustrator by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) which inherited it from the Library Association. CILIP is currently partnered with the audio technology company Yoto in connection with the award, though their sponsorship and the removal of Greenaway’s name from the medal proved controversial.
Helen Sonia Cooper is a British illustrator and an author of children's literature. She grew up in Cumbria, where she practiced literature and piano playing. She currently lives in Oxford.
The United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA) is a registered charity in the United Kingdom which aims to promote good practice and raise standards in literacy. It was founded in 1963 as the United Kingdom Reading Association, but changed its name in 2003. Wiley-Blackwell publishes a journal entitled Journal of Research in Reading on behalf of the UKLA.
Chris Riddell is a South African-born English illustrator and occasional writer of children's books and a political cartoonist for the Observer. He has won three Kate Greenaway Medals – the British librarians' annual award for the best-illustrated children's book, and two of his works were commended runners-up, a distinction dropped after 2002.
Michael Foreman is a British author and illustrator, one of the best-known and most prolific creators of children's books. He won the 1982 and 1989 Kate Greenaway Medals for British children's book illustration and he was a runner-up five times.
Lauren Margot Peachy Child is an English children's author and illustrator. She is best known for the Charlie and Lola picture book series and other book series. Her influences include E. H. Shepard, Quentin Blake, Carl Larsson, and Ludwig Bemelmans.
Winifred Shirley Hughes was an English author and illustrator. She wrote more than fifty books, which have sold more than 11.5 million copies, and illustrated more than two hundred.
Janet Ahlberg and Allan Ahlberg were a British married couple who created many children's books, including picture books that regularly appear at the top of "most popular" lists for public libraries. They worked together for 20 years until Janet's death from cancer in 1994. He wrote the books and she illustrated them. Allan Ahlberg has also written dozens of books with other illustrators.
Anthony Edward Tudor Browne is a British writer and illustrator of children's books, primarily picture books. Browne has written or illustrated over fifty books, and received the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2000. From 2009 to 2011 he was Children's Laureate.
The Kurt Maschler Award was a British literary award that annually recognised one "work of imagination for children, in which text and illustration are integrated so that each enhances and balances the other." Winning authors and illustrators received £1000 and a bronze figurine called the "Emil".
Helen Gillian Oxenbury is an English illustrator and writer of children's picture books. She lives in North London. She has twice won the annual Kate Greenaway Medal, the British librarians' award for illustration and been runner-up four times. For the 50th anniversary of that Medal (1955–2005) her 1999 illustrated edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was named one of the top ten winning works.
Emily Gravett is an English author and illustrator of children's picture books. For her debut book Wolves published in 2005 and Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears published three years later, she won the annual Kate Greenaway Medal recognising the year's best-illustrated British children's book.
Emma Dodd is an English author and illustrator. She is best known for her children's books published by Orchard Books, Templar Publishing, Penguin Books, Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins (US), Scholastic Corporation and Nosy Crow.
Jon Klassen is a Canadian writer and illustrator of children's books and an animator. He won both the American Caldecott Medal and the British Kate Greenaway Medal for children's book illustration, recognizing the 2012 picture book This Is Not My Hat, which he also wrote. He is the first person to win both awards for the same work.
Nosy Crow is an independent children's publisher, based in London. The company was founded in 2010 by Kate Wilson, formerly MD of Macmillan Children’s Books and Group MD of Scholastic UK Ltd, Adrian Soar, formerly Book Publishing CEO of Macmillan Publishers, and Camilla Reid, formerly Editorial Director of Campbell Books. In 2020, the company was named Independent Publisher of the Year at the British Book Awards. As of 2021, Nosy Crow is the UK's 11th largest children's publisher, according to Nielsen BookScan data.
Mimi Thebo is an American author who lives and works in the United Kingdom. Her most recent and most successful books have been for children. Dreaming the Bear has been nominated for the 2017 Carnegie Medal named as a 'future classic' by Booktrust and long listed for the 2017 UKLA award. Dreaming the Bear was published by Oxford University Press in the UK in 2016 and would be later published by Wendy Lamb in the USA in 2017.
Solomon Crocodile is a 2011 picture book by Catherine Rayner. It is about a mischievous crocodile called Solomon who wants to play with various birds and animals but just annoys them until he finally meets another playful crocodile.
Morag Hood is a Scottish writer and illustrator of children's books. Her primary medium is lino printing, although she uses a variety of techniques in her work. Her stories rely on interplay between text and illustration, creating space in the narrative for young readers to fill in. Many of her stories concern relationships, inclusion and prejudice. She has an MA in children's book illustration from the Cambridge School of Art. Hood was the winner of the UKLA book awards in the 3–6 category in 2018, for Colin and Lee, Carrot and Pea, and in 2019 for I am Bat. Her books have been nominated for several other awards, including the Kate Greenaway Medal in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Joseph Aaron Coelho is a British poet and children's book author who was Children's Laureate from 2022 to 2024. In 2023, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. In 2024, he was announced the winner of the Carnegie Medal for his YA novel The Boy Lost in the Maze.
Sita Brahmachari is a British author known for her work in children's and young adult literature. Her debut novel, Artichoke Hearts, later published in the United States as Mira in the Present Tense, won the 2011 Waterstones Children's Book Prize.