Shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Award 2009. The most overlooked threat in the world today is the loss of peace and tranquility. Can someone find the time and space to stop, think and plant the seeds of change before it’s too late. Sparing, wistful words are brought to life by involving and epic images to make the imagination and the heart soar. The result is a sight to behold.
What the Kate Greenaway Award judges said:
'A breathtaking and magical piece of work, that is wholly original and allows your imagination space to work. Craste makes outstanding use of light to haunting and often poignant effect.'
Here Ward's brief lament for the loss of nature's peace and quiet to rampant urbanization really gets tricked out by elaborate packaging, occasional translucent pages and Craste's hyper-atmospheric digital art. The soft sounds of bees and birds once "touched and warmed the hearts of those FEW who paused and cared to listen," but that was before the OTHERS arrived with immense skyscrapers and so much noise that all thought was driven away.
Helen Ward trained as an illustrator at Brighton School of Art, under the direction of well-known children's illustrators such as Raymond Briggs, Justin Todd, Chris McEwan and John Vernon Lord. In 1985, her final year at Brighton, Helen was awarded the first Walker Prize for Children's Illustration.
Awards for Helen's work include The National Art Library Awards 1998 and 2001 for The Hare and the Tortoise and her version of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows in the Templar Classic series, and The National Art Library Award for The Tin Forest. She was shortlisted for the prestigious Kate Greenaway Award in 2003 for The Cockerel and the Fox. This book also won the award in the children’s trade category at the British Book Design and Production Awards presented in November 2003.
