Raymond Briggs shouldn’t need an introduction. He’s the godfather of UK children’s book illustration – and having taught at University of Brighton he has managed to influence plenty of current illustrators (including PJ Lynch).

Best known for creating the seasonal favourites Father Christmas and The Snowman - as well as Fungus the Bogeyman – there is a cannon of more than twenty books and 13 awards (including two Kate Greenaway and a  Children’s Author of the Year).

There is always the sense in Briggs’s work that he makes his books for himself rather than for any target audience. He believes that children can cope quite nicely with adult subtleties and he’s happy enough to risk an equivocal or even an unhappy ending. This is one of the things that give his stories a depth that many contemporary illustrated children’s books lack. It is tempting to think of this as a British trait: certainly, of the crop of American books this summer, few can resist an empowering ‘Hollywood’ resolution. – Tim Adams

***

I’m no expert and open to any/all recommendations – I’d love to find books that I’ve never come across – so if you have a suggestion, send it on.

I’m blatantly cheating again this week. The Guardian featured Chris Wormell’s work yesterday and I, by coincidence, read his book One Smart Fish last week. That is nearly the sum total of what I know about Chris’ work – I loved the premise (fish finding their feet) and the amazing colour, crowds and landscapes in One Smart Fish.

The Guardian, again this week, makes for an excellent introduction:

The pastel drawings are immensely pleasing, but the real charm lies in the way that the protagonists, like all small children, are oblivious to the chaos they cause. – Lyn Gardner talking about Off to the Fair.

***

I’m no expert and open to any/all recommendations – I’d love to find books that I’ve never come across – so if you have a suggestion, send it on.

This week was the easiest yet – I was going to talk Raymond Briggs. But the Guardian have done all the reading for me with an amazing retrospective of Michael Foreman’s work – from his first book, The General, through some of his better (and lesser) known titles – Foreman has managed to create 300 titles for both adults and children.

Outside of The General and a few (2) other picturebooks – I’m not too familiar with Foreman’s work.

The Guardian feature makes for an excellent introduction:

Pictures offer a way of looking at and interpreting the text from a different angle. What you do is provide an image that makes the book work better rather than necessarily illuminating the text. – Michael Foreman

***

I’m no expert and open to any/all recommendations – I’d love to find books that I’ve never come across – so if you have a suggestion, send it on.

It has been a long time since I’ve read a book by Judith Kerr. At least it was until last week.

There is a classic simplisity and unartistic element to her books, that help create their own memorable characteristic and style. I had forgotten how deceptively simple Kerr’s illustration is – from Mog (and the range of supporting cast) to the untiger-like tiger:

Look at the tiger who came to tea – it’s not really a tiger at all. Quentin Blake would have made it much funnier and Michael Foreman would have drawn it better. – Judith Kerr

It’s no surprise that Judith’s work is still popular. It owes nothing to the vagaries of style or fashion. Her warmth and humanity are timeless. – Michael Foreman

***

I’m no expert and open to any/all recommendations – I’d love to find books that I’ve never come across – so if you have a suggestion, send it on.

Marie Louise Fitzpatrick has a lot to answer for. Namely a generation of children with a love for skunks named Skunk (Izzy and Skunk was the first picture-book I bought as a semi grown-up).

The colourful pages and sparse text in MLF’s books work – the reader is nudged in the direction of her story, never pulled by the nose. The imagination and take on what readers (big and small) will enjoy is refreshing:

OF THE IRISH picture-book writers and illustrators who have come to the fore in recent years Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick has emerged as one of the most accomplished and most versatile. – Robert Dunbar, Irish Times

***

‘Book with a view’ (every Tuesday) on children’s book illustrators. I’m no expert and I’m open to any/all recommendations – I’d love to find books that I’ve never come across – so if you have a suggestion, send it on.

This weeks book with a view is one of my favourite illustrators working Ireland – Mr Alan Clarke.

Alan’s book work has included giving life to Ross O’Carroll Kelly as well as illustrating the award winning Something Beginning with P and Eddie Lenihan’s Irish Tales of Mystery and Magic. Hopefully he can be persuaded to write/draw his own book soon – ah go on.

If some word-gobbling wizard came and snatched all the poems out of this new anthology, it would still be a pleasure to browse through. Every page [is] a dramatic, often zany display of characters, creatures and tumbling objects, all in spectacular colours. This anthology sets no boundaries to where the imagination can go.’ Gordon Snell, The Irish Times (Something Beginning with P)

***

‘Book with a view’ is a series (every Tuesday) on children’s book illustrators – from Sendak, Benson, Shepard and Blake right through to the next generation of Dunbar, Haughton, Jeffers, Child and Sharkey. I’m no expert and I’m open to any/all recommendations – I’d love to find books that I’ve never come across – so if you have a suggestion, send it on.

I’m sticking with the legends for this weeks Book with a View – this time with Shirley Hughes.

The incredibly prolific Hughes (who has illustrated more than 200 books and written fifty) has dropped from public conscious (and bookshelves) over the last few years.

I heard her name in a bookshop this week and it was met with a blank stare – followed by a quick visit to google. She’s a winner of several Kate Greenaway Medals and an OBE!

I took my sketchbook everywhere: you go out, hang around playgrounds, get an eye for the way children look, cluster together, run off. You draw very fast, train your memory, then go back to the studio and make it all up. You get that look of when they are a little anxious or distressed — that’s how you convince your audience. – Shirley Hughes

***

‘Book with a view’ is  a series (every Tuesday) on children’s book illustrators – from Sendak, Benson, Shepard and Blake right through to the next generation of Dunbar, Haughton, Jeffers, Child and Sharkey. I’m no expert and I’m open to any/all recommendations – I’d love to find books that I’ve never come across – so if you have a suggestion, send it on.

How’s it going? I’m chuffed to have been asked over to play in the IGI sandpit – and a little nervous.

Kicking off with an old favourite, Quentin Blake and his signature line drawings – they became the stuff of legend in Roald Dahl’s books and influenced generations:

What was so wonderful to me was that so many of Roald’s stories were fantastical, unrealistic, so I was free to do what I wanted. I could let my style develop. Think of The Twits or the BFG – they don’t really take place in a realistic world. They come from my head. – Quentin Blake, the Guardian.

***

‘Book with a view’ is, hopefully, a series (every Tuesday) on children’s book illustrators – from Sendak, Benson, Shepard and Blake right through to the next generation of Dunbar, Haughton, Jeffers, Child and Sharkey.

I’m no expert and I’m open to any/all recommendations – I’d love to find books that I’ve never come across – so if you have a suggestion, send it on.