Helen Cooper | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1963 (age 61-2) London, UK |
| Occupation(s) | Freelance author and illustrator |
| Years active | 1987–present |
| Children | Pandora [1] |
| Website | helencooperbooks |
Helen Sonia Cooper (born 1963 in London) 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. [1] According to the author's website, her books have been translated into 30 languages worldwide. [2]
Cooper has twice been awarded the Kate Greenaway Medal from the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), recognising the year's best children's book illustration by a British subject. [3] [4] She won for The Baby Who Wouldn't Go To Bed in 1996, which she wrote and illustrated. [5] In 1998 she won for Pumpkin Soup, which she also wrote and illustrated. They were consecutive projects for her. [6]
Beside winning the two Greenaway Medals (no one has won three), Cooper made the shortlist for The Bear Under the Stairs (Doubleday, 1993) and Tatty Ratty (Doubleday, 2001). [7] [8]
As well as her solo picture books, Cooper writes picture book texts for other illustrators, and also illustrates her own middle grade fiction - most recently, The Taming of the Cat published by Faber and Faber in the UK.
WorldCat reports that Pumpkin Soup is her work most widely held in participating libraries. [9]
Cooper was married to Ted Dewan, a fellow children's book author and illustrator and they have one daughter. They are now divorced. [10]
Cooper is both the writer and the illustrator of many published picture books and a set of four "mini-books" about toy animals (1994), later packaged in English, Spanish, and Catalan languages as Toy Tales (1999). [9] She has illustrated a few books by other writers [7] and written one book with another illustrator, as noted.
