The Carnegie Medal is a British literary award that annually recognises one outstanding new English-language book for children or young adults. It is conferred upon the author by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP). CILIP calls it "the UK's oldest and most prestigious book award for children's writing".
Catherine Greenaway was an English Victorian artist and writer, known for her children's book illustrations. She received her education in graphic design and art between 1858 and 1871 from the Finsbury School of Art, the South Kensington School of Art, the Heatherley School of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art. She began her career designing for the burgeoning holiday card market, producing Christmas and Valentine's cards. In 1879 wood-block engraver and printer, Edmund Evans, printed Under the Window, an instant best-seller, which established her reputation. Her collaboration with Evans continued throughout the 1880s and 1890s.
A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. With the narrative told primarily through text, they are distinct from comics, which do so primarily through sequential images. The images in picture books can be produced in a range of media, such as oil paints, acrylics, watercolor, and pencil. Picture books often serve as pedagogical resources, aiding with children's language development or understanding of the world.
Raymond Redvers Briggs was an English illustrator, cartoonist, graphic novelist and author. Achieving critical and popular success among adults and children, he is best known in Britain for his 1978 story The Snowman, a book without words whose cartoon adaptation is televised and whose musical adaptation is staged every Christmas.
The Yoto Carnegie Medal for Illustration is a British literary 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.
Victor Ambrus was a Hungarian-born British illustrator of history, folk tales, and animal story books. He also became known from his appearances on the Channel 4 television archaeology series Time Team, on which he visualised how sites under excavation may have once looked. Ambrus was an Associate of the Royal College of Art and a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Society of Painters, Etchers and Engravers. He was also a patron of the Association of Archaeological Illustrators and Surveyors up until its merger with the Institute for Archaeologists in 2011.
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.
Nick Sharratt is a British author and illustrator of children's books, whose work is split between illustrating for writers, most notably Jacqueline Wilson from 1991 to 2021, and Jeremy Strong, but also Giles Andreae, Julia Donaldson and Michael Rosen. He was chosen to be the official illustrator for World Book Day 2006, and has illustrated around 250 books, including over 50 books by Wilson, among them The Lottie Project, Little Darlings and The Story of Tracy Beaker which was the most borrowed library book in the UK for the first decade of the 21st century. The books on which Sharratt and Wilson have collaborated have sold more than 40 million copies in the UK and sales of picture books illustrated by Sharratt exceed 10 million.
Antonia Barber, was an English author of books for children and adults. Barber resided in Kent and Mousehole, Cornwall. Her book The Mousehole Cat was adapted as an animated film and is being adapted as a stage musical. She graduated from University College London. The younger sister of fellow author Pamela Oldfield, Barber was married to a structural engineer.
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 commended 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.
Laurence Daren King is an English novelist and children's writer. His debut novel, Boxy an Star, made the shortlist for the Guardian First Book Award and the ten finalists for the Booker Prize in 1999. He won the Nestlé Children's Book Prize gold medal in the 6 to 8-year-old readers category for Mouse Noses on Toast in 2006.
Jane Ray is an English illustrator of more than 70 children's books. The first book Jane illustrated A Balloon for Grandad written by Nigel Gray, is included in 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up. She is the writer and illustrator of some including Can You Catch a Mermaid?, Ahmed and the Feather Girl, and The Elephants Garden. She won the 1992 Nestlé Children's Book Prize in the 6- to 8-year-old readers category for the Story of the Creation, published by Orchard Books, and has been shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal several times. She was also a nominee for the Biennial of Illustration Bratislava 2017.
Robert Donald Graham, better known as Bob Graham, is an Australian author and illustrator of picture books, primarily for very young children.
Pirate Diary: The Journal of Jake Carpenter is an account of the pirate life cast as the journal of a young cabin boy, written by Richard Platt and illustrated by Chris Riddell. It was published by Walker in 2001, two years after Castle Diary, also by Platt and Riddell. Platt continued the "Diary" series with illustrator David Parkins.
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 (2023-2054) her 1999 illustrated edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was named one of the top ten winning works.
Toy books were illustrated children's books that became popular in England's Victorian era. The earliest toy books were typically paperbound, with six illustrated pages and sold for sixpence; larger and more elaborate editions became popular later in the century. In the mid-19th century picture books began to be made for children, with illustrations dominating the text rather than supplementing the text.
Caroline Binch is an English illustrator and writer of children's books.
Joseph Coelho is a British poet and children's book author who was elected Children's Laureate in 2022.
