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Hannah May Firmin, (born 24 March 1956) is an illustrator and printmaker. She is notable for illustrating the book covers of Alexander McCall Smith's The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series for which she was awarded "Book Cover of the Year" at the British Book Awards 2004.
Firmin is the second daughter of Peter Firmin, co-creator with the late Oliver Postgate, of the children's television programmes Pingwings , Pogles' Wood , Noggin the Nog , Ivor the Engine , Clangers and Bagpuss . She grew up in Blean, Kent, before moving to London to attend Chelsea College of Art, and then The Royal College of Art in 1981. Since then she has worked as a freelance illustrator for books, magazines, newspapers and for advertising and design companies.
In 2004 Firmin was awarded the award for "best book cover" at the British Book Awards for her work on Alexander McCall Smith's "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency". She has illustrated the covers for the ten books in the series, to critical acclaim. With McCall Smith, Firmin has supported the literacy charity Book Aid International, donating an illustrated McCall Smith story for auction. She tends to work in the printing media, numbering among her influences the work of both Indian and African relief printers.
Firmin has two children and lives in Wales.
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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.
Alexander "Sandy" McCall Smith, CBE, FRSE, is a British legal scholar and author of fiction. He was raised in Southern Rhodesia and was formerly Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. He became an expert on medical law and bioethics and served on related British and international committees. He has since become known as a fiction writer, with sales in English exceeding 40 million by 2010 and translations into 46 languages. He is known as the creator of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. The "McCall" derives from his great-great-grandmother Bethea McCall, who married James Smith at Glencairn, Dumfries-shire, in 1833.
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is a series of novels by Alexander McCall Smith set in Botswana and featuring the character Mma Precious Ramotswe. The series is named after the first novel, published in 1998. Twenty-three novels have been published in the series between 1998 and 2022.
Charles Vess is an American fantasy artist and comics artist who has specialized in the illustration of myths and fairy tales. His influences include British "Golden Age" book illustrator Arthur Rackham, Czech Art Nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha, and comic-strip artist Hal Foster, among others. Vess has won several awards for his illustrations. Vess' studio, Green Man Press, is located in Abingdon, VA.
Mary GrandPré is an American illustrator best known for her cover and chapter illustrations of the Harry Potter books in their U.S. editions published by Scholastic. She received a Caldecott Honor in 2015 for illustrating Barb Rosenstock's The Noisy Paint Box: The Colors and Sounds of Kandinsky's Abstract Art. GrandPré, who creates her artwork with paint and pastels, has illustrated more than twenty books and has appeared in gallery exhibitions and periodicals such as The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, and The Wall Street Journal.
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is the first detective novel in the eponymous series by Scottish author Alexander McCall Smith, first published in 1998. The novel introduces the Motswana Mma Precious Ramotswe, who begins the first detective agency in Botswana, in the capital city Gaborone, after her beloved father dies. She hires a secretary and solves cases for her clients.
The Sunday Philosophy Club is the first of the Sunday Philosophy Club series of novels by Alexander McCall Smith, set in Edinburgh, Scotland, and featuring the protagonist Isabel Dalhousie. It was first published in 2004.
Jessie Willcox Smith was an American illustrator during the Golden Age of American illustration. She was considered "one of the greatest pure illustrators". A contributor to books and magazines during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Smith illustrated stories and articles for clients such as Century, Collier's, Leslie's Weekly, Harper's, McClure's, Scribners, and the Ladies' Home Journal. She had an ongoing relationship with Good Housekeeping, which included a long-running Mother Goose series of illustrations and also the creation of all of the Good Housekeeping covers from December 1917 to 1933. Among the more than 60 books that Smith illustrated were Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and An Old-Fashioned Girl, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Evangeline, and Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses.
Morality for Beautiful Girls is the third detective novel in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith, set in Gaborone, Botswana. The novel features the Motswana protagonist Mma Precious Ramotswe.
Anita E. Kunz, OC, DFA, RCA is a Canadian-born artist and illustrator. She was the first woman and first Canadian to have a solo exhibit at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
Lara Kate Jones was a British artist, children's author and illustrator. She is best remembered for her Poppy Cat series of children's books, which have been published in 20 languages and sold over two and a half million copies.
Babette Cole was an English children's writer and illustrator.
David Ian Roberts is a British children's illustrator. He has illustrated a large number of books in both black and white and colour. His black and white work mainly features in books for older readers and he has worked with such well-known authors as Philip Ardagh, G.P. Taylor, Chris Priestley, Mick Jackson, Susan Price, Jon Blake and Tom Baker. Mouse Noses on Toast by Daren King won the Nestle Smarties Book Prize in 2006, after which King and Roberts collaborated on other titles including Peter the Penguin Pioneer, Sensible Hare and the Case of Carrots and The Frightfully Friendly Ghosties series.
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies is the sixth in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series of novels by Alexander McCall Smith, set in Gaborone, Botswana, and featuring the Motswana protagonist Precious Ramotswe.
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is a television comedy-drama series, produced by the BBC in conjunction with HBO, and based on the novels of the same name by Alexander McCall Smith. The novels focus on the story of a detective agency opened by Mma Ramotswe and her courtship with the mechanic Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni. The series was filmed on location in Botswana and was seen as one of the first major film or television productions to be undertaken in Botswana.
Emily Gertrude Thomson (1850–1929) was a British artist and illustrator.
Mitchell Hooks was an American artist and illustrator known for his artwork for paperback books and magazines.
Bronwyn Bancroft is an Aboriginal Australian artist, administrator, book illustrator, and among the first three Australian fashion designers to show their work in Paris. She was born in Tenterfield, New South Wales, and trained in Canberra and Sydney.
Kelly Murphy is an American author, illustrator and educator. She is based in Providence, Rhode Island.
Anne Yvonne Gilbert is a British artist and book illustrator. Her cover design of Frankie Goes To Hollywood's 1983 single "Relax" has been described as "one of the most famous record sleeves of all time". While much of her career since then has focused on illustrating the covers and interiors of popular books, Gilbert has also designed series of stamps produced by the Royal Mail depicting Christmas themes and Arthurian mythology. She illustrated several of the books in the Ologies series, among other children's books.