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.
Olive, the Other Reindeer is a 1999 American 2D computer-animated Christmas comedy musical film written by Steve Young, based on the children's book by J. Otto Seibold, and directed by Academy Award-nominated animator Steve Moore. The feature was produced by Matt Groening's The Curiosity Company and animated by DNA Productions.
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.
In traditional festive legend and popular culture, Santa Claus's reindeer are said to pull a sleigh through the night sky to help Santa Claus deliver gifts to children on Christmas Eve.
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.
David Wiesner is an American illustrator and writer of children's books, known best for picture books including some that tell stories without words. As an illustrator he has won three Caldecott Medals recognizing the year's "most distinguished American picture book for children" and he was one of five finalists in 2008 for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest recognition available for creators of children's books.
Steven Castle Kellogg is an American author and illustrator who has created more than 90 children's books.
David Shannon is an American writer and illustrator of children's books. Shannon grew up in Spokane, Washington. He graduated from the Art Center College of Design and now lives in Los Angeles. In 1998 he won the Caldecott Honor for his No, David!. He has also written A Bad Case of Stripes, How Georgie Radbourn Saved Baseball, and The Amazing Christmas Extravaganza. Shannon illustrated Audrey Wood's The Bunyans, Rafe Martin's The Rough Face Girl, various books by Jane Yolen, including The Ballad of the Pirate Queens and Encounter, as well as Melinda Long's How I Became a Pirate and Pirates Don't Change Diapers.
Paul O. Zelinsky is an American illustrator and writer best known for illustrating children's picture books. He won the 1998 Caldecott Medal for U.S. picture book illustration, for Rapunzel. His most popular work is Wheels On the Bus, a best-selling movable book.
Brian Selznick is an American illustrator and author best known as the writer of The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2007), Wonderstruck (2011), The Marvels (2015) and Kaleidoscope (2021). He won the 2008 Caldecott Medal for U.S. picture book illustration recognizing The Invention of Hugo Cabret. He is also known for illustrating children's books such as the covers of Scholastic's 20th-anniversary editions of the Harry Potter series.
Vivian Walsh is a children's book author. Her best selling book Olive, the Other Reindeer is based on her real life Jack Russell Terrier. The dog, Olive, was later portrayed in the animated version of the picture book. The TV special was produced by Matt Groening, creator of the Simpsons.
Frederick Warne & Co. is a British publisher founded in 1865. It is known for children's books, particularly those of Beatrix Potter, and for its Observer's Books.
Vladimir Vasilyevich Lebedev was part of the Russian avant-garde: A painter, a political cartoonist and a poster artist, with an experimental style influenced by Russian folk art, lubki, futurism, constructivism, suprematism, productionism and cubism. A pioneer in the field of children's illustration, he would later acknowledge his role in inventing a new illustrative style, created in the "language of cubism."
Pamela Kay Allen is a New Zealand children's writer and illustrator. She has published over 50 picture books since 1980. Sales of her books have exceeded five million copies.
Robert Casilla is an American artist and illustrator of award-winning children's books. He has illustrated over 30 children's books, including biographies and multicultural stories. His illustrations are influenced by his Hispanic background.
The illustration of manuscript books was well established in ancient times, and the tradition of the illuminated manuscript thrived in the West until the invention of printing. Other parts of the world had comparable traditions, such as the Persian miniature. Modern book illustration comes from the 15th-century woodcut illustrations that were fairly rapidly included in early printed books, and later block books. Other techniques such as engraving, etching, lithography and various kinds of colour printing were to expand the possibilities and were exploited by such masters as Daumier, Doré or Gavarni.
Ann Catherine Stewart James is an Australian illustrator of more than 60 children's books, some of which she also wrote. She was born in Melbourne, Victoria. James has been illustrating books since the 1980s and has become a significant contributor towards the development and appreciation of children's literature in Australia. In 2000 she was awarded the Pixie O'Harris Award as a formal acknowledgment of this contribution and was also the 2002 recipient of the national Dromkeen Medal for services towards children's literature. Ann James currently still lives and works in Melbourne, where she runs the Books Illustrated gallery and studio that she co-founded with Ann Haddon in 1988.
James Austin is an Australian fine-art and architectural photographer.
Sarah Noble Ives was an American author, illustrator, and historian known for her children's books including Dog Heroes of Many Lands and Songs of the Shining Way. Her work also appeared in publications like the New York Herald Tribune, the Boston Globe, and McClure's, sometimes under the name Noble Ives. Later in her life she researched and published a history of Altadena, California.
Hey Grandude! is a picture book for children written by Paul McCartney and illustrated by Kathryn Durst. It was published by Puffin Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, in September 2019. An audio version of the book with an instrumental soundtrack was also released.
