Ichard Adams was born in Berkshire in 1920 and studied history at Bradfield and Worcester College, Oxford. He served in the Second World War and in 1948 joined the Civil Service. In the mid-sixties he completed his first novel, Watership Down, the story of which he originally told to his children to while away a long car journey. Watership Down was awarded both the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian award for children's fiction for 1972.
Author-illustrator Alex T.
Smith is the award-winning creator of the bestselling Claude series, which is published in 20 languages worldwide, and is now on TV. Alex's newest series is the critically acclaimed and well-loved Mr Penguin. Alex has won the UKLA Picture Book Award, the Children's Book of the World Illustration Award and the Sainsbury's Children's Book Award, and been shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Award.
He has also been the official World Book Day illustrator.