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Steve Parker is a British science writer of children's and adult's books. He has written more than 300 titles and contributed to or edited another 150. [1]
Born in Warrington, Lancashire, in 1952, Parker attended Strodes College, Egham and gained a BSc First Class Honours in Zoology at the University of Wales, Bangor. He worked as an exhibition scientist at the Natural History Museum, and as editor and managing editor at Dorling Kindersley Publishers, and commissioning editor at medical periodical GP, before becoming a freelance writer in the late 1980s. He is a Senior Scientific Fellow of the Zoological Society of London. Parker is based in Suffolk with his family. [2]
Parker's writing career began with 10 early titles in Dorling Kindersley's multi-award-winning Eyewitness series, from the late 1980s to the late 1990s. He has since worked for more than a dozen children's book publishers and been shortlisted for, among others, the Rhone-Poulenc Science Book Prize, Times Educational Information Book of the Year, and Blue Peter Book Award. [3]
In 2009 he co-wrote The Complete Guide to Minerals, Rocks and Fossils of the World, with John Farndon, (Lorenz Educational Press)
In 2013 Parker's title Science Crazy (QED) won the UK School Library Association's Information Book Award, [4] and Fizzing Physics (QED) won the Hampshire Information Book Award. [5]
Parker also writes adult books, recently including Extinction: Not the End of the World? (Natural History Museum, 2013), [6] the million-selling The Human Body Book (Second Edition, Dorling Kindersley, 2013) and Kill or Cure, an Illustrated History of Medicine (Dorling Kindersley, 2013.) [7]
In 2014 Kill or Cure entered the New York Times Science Bestsellers [8] and also won the 2014 British Medical Association Book Award for Public Understanding of Science. [9]
In 2015 Parker was general editor of Evolution: The Whole Story (Thames and Hudson), heading a team of 12 expert authors in paleontology, paleobiology and paleoecology. Popular weekly New Scientist described the work as 'highly accessible … such an attractive and friendly book … the approach breathes life into everything, including "boring" stuff (that is, non-dinosaur stuff) … bright, breezy and modern'. [10]
In 2016 Parker produced two of the largest and most complex titles of his career, Medicine: The Definitive Visual History (Dorling Kindersley), [11] and BODY: The infographic book of us (Aurum Press) with graphic designer, illustrator and academic Andrew Baker. [12] He also continued his collaboration with London's Natural History Museum with publication of Colour and Vision: Through the Eyes of Nature. 2017 saw further titles including A Brief Illustrated History of Life on Earth (Raintree) [13] with specialist illustrator David West, and books on dinosaurs, oceans and seas, and robots and gadgets. In 2018 Parker received the School Library Information Book award for the second time, for In Focus: Seas and Oceans (Kingfisher).
Parker travels extensively around Britain to hold talks, workshops and book signings at schools, libraries and science events. [14] [15]
Spider-Man is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, he first appeared in the anthology comic book Amazing Fantasy #15 in the Silver Age of Comic Books. He has since been featured in films, television shows, video games, and plays. Spider-Man is the alias of Peter Parker, an orphan raised by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben in New York City after his parents Richard and Mary Parker died in a plane crash. Lee and Ditko had the character deal with the struggles of adolescence and financial issues and gave him many supporting characters, such as Flash Thompson, J. Jonah Jameson, and Harry Osborn; romantic interests Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson, and the Black Cat; and foes such as Doctor Octopus, the Green Goblin, and Venom. In his origin story, he gets spider-related abilities from a bite from a radioactive spider; these include clinging to surfaces, superhuman strength and agility, and detecting danger with his "spider-sense." He also builds wrist-mounted "web-shooter" devices that shoot artificial spider webs of his own design.
Dorling Kindersley Limited is a British multinational publishing company specialising in illustrated reference books for adults and children in 63 languages. It is part of Penguin Random House, a subsidiary of German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. Established in 1974, DK publishes a range of titles in genres including travel, history, science, nature, sports, gardening, cookery and parenting. The worldwide CEO of DK is Carsten Coesfeld. DK has offices in New York, Melbourne, London, Munich, New Delhi, Toronto, Madrid, Beijing, and Jiangmen. DK works with licensing partners such as Disney, LEGO, DC Comics, the Royal Horticultural Society, MasterChef, and the Smithsonian Institution. DK has commissioned Mary Berry, Monty Don, Robert Winston, Huw Richards, and Steve Mould for a range of books.
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.
Peter Chrisp is a British children's author of books on history. With over ninety books published, his various works include Blitzkrieg!, Dorling Kindersley's Ancient Egypt Revealed and Ancient Rome Revealed, The Spanish Conquests of the New World, and many more.
The Blue Peter Book Awards are a set of literary awards for children's books conferred by the BBC television programme Blue Peter. They were inaugurated in 2000 for books published in 1999. The Awards have been managed by reading charity, Booktrust, since 2006. As of 2013, there are two award categories: Best Story and Best Book with Facts.
Eyewitness is a nature and science children's television series produced by BBC and DK Vision. The show is based on the bestselling series of Eyewitness Books by Dorling Kindersley. Guy Michelmore composed the series` opening and ending themes, as well as the score for each individual episode of Season 1, with Guy Dagul writing the score for each individual episode of Seasons 2 and 3, respectively.
David Alderton is an English writer specialising in pets and natural history topics. Growing up in a home surrounded by pets, he originally trained to become a veterinary surgeon. An allergic dermatitis acquired in his final year of study forced a change of career however, and so led him into the field of writing about pets and their care. He has since become a regular contributor of articles on this subject to a wide range of newspapers and magazines in the UK and abroad, and also participates frequently in radio and television programmes. As of 2010 his books have sold over five million copies, and have been translated into 30 different languages. Alderton's titles have won awards in the US from the Cat Writers' Association of America and the Maxwell Medallion from the Dog Writers’ Association of America, as well as being nominated for the Sir Peter Kent Conservation Book Prize. He has also chaired the National Council for Aviculture, the umbrella organisation for bird-keeping clubs and associations in the UK.
The Booktrust Early Years Awards, originally the Sainsbury’s Baby Book Award(s), was a set of annual literary prizes for children's picture books. It was administered by Booktrust, an independent charity that promotes books and reading; from 1999 to 2004 it was sponsored by the supermarket chain Sainsbury's. The last Awards year was 2010.
Eyewitness Books is a series of educational nonfiction books. They were first published in England by Dorling Kindersley in 1988. The series now has over one hundred titles on a variety of subjects, such as dinosaurs, Ancient Egypt, flags, chemistry, music, the solar system, film, and William Shakespeare. According to Dorling Kindersley, over 50 million copies have been sold in 36 languages.
Jonathan Elphick is a natural history author, editor and consultant. He is an eminent ornithologist, a qualified zoologist; Fellow of the Zoological Society of London and a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London. He is author of The Birdwatcher's Handbook: A Guide to the Birds of Britain and Ireland; Birds: The Art of Ornithology and The Natural History Museum Atlas of Bird Migration: Tracing the Great Journeys of the World's Birds, which received Bird Watching Magazine's 'Best Bird Reference Book of the Year'; as well as co-author of the Encyclopedia of Animals; the RSPB Pocket Birds; A Unique Photographic Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe with Jonathan Woodward and The National Parks and other Wild Places of Britain and Ireland, with photography by David Tipling.
Bill Graham Archives v. Dorling Kindersley, Ltd., 448 F.3d 605, is a case in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit regarding the fair use of images in a pictorial history text.
Sarah Simblet is a graphic artist, writer and broadcaster, who teaches anatomical drawing at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art and at the University of Oxford.
Catherine Rayner is an Edinburgh-based British illustrator and writer of children's books. She was born in Harrogate in 1982, and grew up in Boston Spa, later studying at Leeds College of Art and Edinburgh College of Art.
Ed Vere is a British writer and illustrator of children's books. He won the Highland Children's Book Award in 2007 for his book, The Getaway and was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal for children's book illustration, recognizing his 2008 picture book Banana. His third book, Mr. Big was chosen by Booktrust as the official Booktime book for 2009 and was subsequently distributed to 750,000 British schoolchildren making it the largest single print run of a picture book in the UK. In 2009, his fourth book, Chick won the Booktrust Early Years Award for Best Baby Book. His book Bedtime for Monsters was shortlisted for the 2011 Roald Dahl Funny Prize. His 2018 book, How to Be a Lion, was nominated for the 2019 Kate Greenaway Medal and the 2019 Carnegie Medal.
Robert (Bob) Nicholls is a British paleoartist.
John Andrew Brookes, MBE was a garden and landscape designer. He started designing gardens and landscapes in the late 1950s and designed thousands of gardens. He also taught and lectured about horticulture, landscape and interior design.
John Farndon is a British writer of books, plays and music. He is best known as a writer of, and contributor to, science books for children.
Christopher J Woodford is a British science writer. He has written several dozen educational science books for adults and children, which have won multiple awards, been published in numerous languages, and collectively sold around 4 million copies.
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