The Fairy Tales

Jan Pienkowski is a celebrated illustrator of children's books and an internationally renowned master of silhouettes. He has won the Greenaway Medal twice for his illustration of Joan Aiken's The Kingdom Under the Sea and for the pioneering pop-up book Haunted House. He was born in Warsaw in 1936. His family were architects and artists. He made his first book when he was 8, as a present for his father. It was all about road rage - but featuring a horse and cart. The war made his childhood an adventure, if not a very comfortable one at times, taking him from Poland to Austria, Germany, Italy and finally bringing him in 1946 to England. With his parents, he came to Herefordshire, where he had two new experiences - going to school for the first time and learning English. Later, he went to The Cardinal Vaughan School in London and then to King's College, Cambridge, where he read Classics and English - and managed to find time for a lot of posters and stage design. Jan pioneered the modern Pop-up book with Haunted House (subsequently on CD-Rom), Robot, Dinner Time, Good Night and 17 others. Christmas Kingdom, Phone Book and Door Bell added sound effects while Botticelli's Bed and Breakfast capers irreverently through the history of western art.

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