Dr Xargle's Book of Earth Families

About Jeanne Willis

Jeanne Willis is an award-winning children's author and scriptwriter.  She wrote her first book when she was five - a slim volume about cats written in pencil and stitched together with a painfully blunt needle so that it looked like a 'real' book. After that, there was no turning back. Having been fired from her Saturday job - selling cowboy boots on the Kings Road - for chewing gum, and after a brief career as a reptile vet's assistant, she worked as a copywriter and had her first picture book published at the age of 21 (which she wrote whilst pretending to be busy creating adverts for cognac).

She has since written over 300 books and has won several awards, which are arranged in the attic where she works, along with her collection of caterpillars, pink-toed tarantula skins and live locusts. Jeanne has a keen interest in Natural History and has lost count of the number of species featured in her books, including everything from slugs to sloths. She is currently into corvids - especially Nosy Crows.

Jeanne has won the Silver Medal Smarties Prize for Tadpole's Promise, the Nasen Special Needs Award for Susan Laughs, the Sheffield Children's Book Award for Who’s in The Loo and the Red House Children's Book Award for Bottoms Up. Jeanne has also worked on scripts for TV, including Polly Pocket and The Slow Norris, and a pilot TV series for Dr Xargle.