I was born in London and have lived and worked there ever since. When I was 17 I went to Hornsey College of Art for five years, leaving with a first class degree. I then became a freelance illustrator, and had my first book published when I was 22. I love traditional stories of all kinds and from any country throughout the world. Ideas for my picture books have come from myths, legends, folk tales, fairy stories, folk songs and oral poetry.
Over the past 40 years I have worked on my own series of picture books - FOLK TALES OF THE WORLD, which I retold and illustrated. One of these - How the Birds Changed Their Feathers, was commended for the KATE GREENAWAY MEDAL. The BBC and Channel 4 have made three of these books into short animated films for Children's TV - What Made Tiddalik Laugh, Tortoise's Dream, and The Tiger Child. I have also illustrated books for many other authors: Kevin Crossley-Holland, Geoffrey Trease, James Reeves, Adel Geras, Jamila Gavin and Robert Nye. I have illustrated for JACKANORY and JACKANORY PLAYHOUSE as well.
I taught illustration at Harrow, Barnet, West Herts and Croydon Colleges of Art. I also visited schools and libraries all over Britain to give talks about my work. I have been a writer in residence for several schools, and have also worked as a part time teaching assistant in a primary school, helping children who are new to English.
Recently I have become very interested in digital publishing. I did the illustrations for an app for children, GHOSTS, written by John Cunliffe. I have now published six of my picture books as ebooks on the iBooks Store: THE FIRE FLOWER, HOW STORIES CAME INTO THE WORLD,
THE WIZARD PUNCHKIN, TORTOISE'S DREAM, HOW THE BIRDS CHANGED THEIR FEATHERS and WHAT MADE TIDDALIK LAUGH. Available here
