Michael Foreman | |
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| Born | 21 March 1938 Pakefield, Suffolk, England |
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Michael Foreman OBE (born 21 March 1938) is a British author and illustrator, one of the best-known and most prolific creators of children's books. [1] He won the 1982 and 1989 Kate Greenaway Medals for British children's book illustration and he was a runner-up five times. [2]
For his contribution as a children's illustrator he was UK nominee in 1988 and again in 2010 for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest recognition available to creators of children's books. [3] [4]
Foreman was born and grew up in Pakefield, near Lowestoft, Suffolk, where his mother kept the village shop. [5] [6] His father died a month before he was born. [7] When he was three, the family home was hit by a German bomb, but he survived along with his mother and two older brothers. [8] He studied at Lowestoft School of Art, and later in London at the Royal College of Art, [9] where he won a scholarship to the United States.
Foreman was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2022 Birthday Honours for services to literature. [10]
Foreman learned to respond instantly to text as an art student. [11] Having drawn for the newspapers and for the police, drawing female suspects when Identikit only catered for men, he gained valuable drawing experience. A travel scholarship took him all around the world, drawing landscapes, architecture and wildlife. Although many of his books feature luminous watercolours, it is the drawing that he sees as vital: "It's all in the drawing and illustration. It's a question of creating another world, believable in its own right. I think I was very lucky to have started art school so young when they actually taught Art. It was a rigorous training – not just painting and drawing from life – but hours of anatomy and perspective. ... it really taught you to understand what you were looking at." [11] His aim in illustration is to make the worlds created believable, real: "I keep trying to make things more real, not in a literal photographic sense, but in an emotional sense, telling a story by capturing the essence of the situation, giving it some meaning." [11]
The Carnegie Medal for Writing, established in 1936, 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), who calls it "the UK's oldest and most prestigious book award for children's writing". CILIP is currently partnered with the audio technology company Yoto in connection with the award.
Sir Quentin Saxby Blake, is an English cartoonist, caricaturist, illustrator and children's writer. He has illustrated over 300 books, including 18 written by Roald Dahl, which are among his most popular works. For his lasting contribution as a children's illustrator he won the biennial international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2002, the highest recognition available to creators of children's books. From 1999 to 2001, he was the inaugural British Children's Laureate. He is a patron of the Association of Illustrators.
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 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.
Peter Malcolm de Brissac Dickinson OBE FRSL was an English author and poet, best known for children's books and detective stories.
Hamish Vigne Christie "Korky" Paul is a British illustrator of children's books. He was born and raised in Rhodesia, but now lives in Oxford, England. His work, characteristically executed with bright watercolour paint and pen and ink, is recognisable by an anarchic yet detailed style and for its "wild characterisation". He is most known for his illustration of the series Winnie the Witch.
Charles William James Keeping was an English illustrator, children's book author and lithographer. He made the illustrations for Rosemary Sutcliff's historical novels for children, and he created more than twenty picture books. He also illustrated the complete works of Charles Dickens for the Folio Society.
David Almond is a British author who has written many novels for children and young adults from 1998, each one receiving critical acclaim.
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.
Kevin John William Crossley-Holland is an English translator, children's author and poet. His best known work is probably the Arthur trilogy (2000–2003), for which he won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and other recognition.
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.
Errol John Le Cain was a British animator and children's book illustrator. In 1984 he won the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal for "distinguished illustration in a book for children" for Hiawatha's Childhood.
City of Gold and other stories from the Old Testament is a collection of 33 Old Testament Bible stories retold for children by Peter Dickinson, illustrated by Michael Foreman, and published by Victor Gollancz Ltd in 1980. The British Library Association awarded Dickinson his second Carnegie Medal recognising the year's outstanding children's book by a British subject and highly commended Foreman for the companion Kate Greenaway Medal.
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.
John Burningham was an English author and illustrator of children's books, especially picture books for young children. He lived in north London with his wife Helen Oxenbury, another illustrator. His last published work was a husband-and-wife collaboration, There's Going to Be a New Baby, written by John and illustrated by Helen for "ages 2+".
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.
The Little Bookroom is a collection of twenty-seven stories for children by Eleanor Farjeon, published by Oxford University Press in 1955 with illustrations by Edward Ardizzone. They were selected by the author from stories published earlier in her career. Most were in the fairy tale style.
Russell Ayto is an English author and illustrator of children's books including many picture books.
Gerald Hembdon Seymour Rose was a British illustrator of children's books. He won the 1960 Kate Greenaway Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book illustration by a British subject, for Old Winkle and the Seagulls, written by his wife Elizabeth (Liz) Rose and published by Faber and Faber.
