Mr Underbed

Children's Laureate 2015-2017

One of the World Book Day 2015 Authors Chris Riddell was our Author and Illustrator of the Month in December 2010. Click here to find out more.

Chris Riddell is a prolific writer and illustrator whose work is familiar to both children and adults. He is known especially for his distinctive line drawings with their clever caricature, fascinating detail and often enchanting fantasy elements. He has won the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal twice, in 2002 for Pirate Diary and in 2004 for Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver. His solo work includes the Goth Girl series, the Ottoline series and the picture books The Emperor of Absurdia and Alienography. The first Goth Girl novel won the Costa Children’s Book Award in 2013. He received the Hay Festival Medal for Illustration at the 2015 Hay Festival.

He has worked widely with a variety of collaborators: Paul Stewart on the Muddle Earth, Edge Chronicles and Wyrmweald series; Neil Gaiman on The Graveyard Book, The Sleeper and the Spindle, and Fortunately the Milk, and Russell Brand on Trickster Tales: The Pied Piper of Hamelin. He has also illustrated A Great Big Cuddle: Poems for the Very Young by former Children’s Laureate Michael Rosen, published in September.

In addition to his children’s books, Chris is a renowned political cartoonist whose work appears in The Observer, The Literary Review and The New Statesman. He lives in Brighton with his wife and has three grown-up children.

Chris Riddell on John Tenniel : "Before I knew a thing about him, John Tenniel was a hero of mine, or rather, I should say, his white rabbit was. As a child I copied Tenniel’s illustrations from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland obsessively, particularly his drawing of the White Rabbit in waistcoat and frock coat, umbrella tucked under one arm and a pocket watch in paw, a look of suppressed panic in his eye. I loved analysing the shading, intricate lines of cross-hatching, the folds of the sleeve, the tilt of the head, that wide-eyed rabbit stare. Tenniel was one of the reasons I became an illustrator."

Photo credit Jo Riddell.

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