Shirley Hughes

She is an author and illustrator she has written over fifty books which have been sold more than 8 million copies and has illustrated more than 200 as well. She trained at Liverpool School of Art and the Ruskin School of Drawing in Oxford, she had wanted to be a set designer but changed her mind and the influence of theatre still remains in her work. She had began her work by illustrating for others authors work. With her children she gained a first hand experience on what they like to read which influenced her first book which was called Lucy and Tom’s Day. She has also won the Kate Greenaway medal for her book Dogger which is a book about a family incident the loss of a pet dog. She loved writing books about real life situations as she said there was not many children’s books about this. She was also awarded an OBE in 1999.

A quote from Shirley says " My books have grown from real situations with which very small children can identify, perhaps even at an age before they can fully appreciate fairy tales. They are mostly set in a city background - my own part of London to be exact. The domestic details are very local and English, but I hope the themes are fairly universal."

Dogger by Shirley Hughes