Sue Baker
Sue Baker was born and lived in London until she was 11 years old before moving to Sussex. She studied textile design in Reigate and graduated in 1978. She worked as a freelance designer and then was employed as an illustrator for a health education teaching project in Oxford.
She started work as an illustrator with Child's Play in 1987, and over the years her role has diversified into writing and editing. She lives in Gloucestershire with her partner.
Caroline Cross
Caroline grew up in a village south of Cambridge, UK, where she loved to cycle around the surrounding countryside. Poems would often pop into her head, and she would race home and jot them down in an old exercise book. Caroline has kept a diary since she was at primary school, and even now themes emerge when she rereads them. Her love of being outside, immersed in nature, also comes from weekends and holidays spent on the East Coast of England, where her creative mind could run wild with the elements. With her daughter, Caroline continues to find treasures and inspiration from visits to the beach and adventures around the world.
Naomi Danis
Naomi shares a universal fascination with vehicles, traffic, motion, and commotion, popular especially with the young children in BYE, CAR, her seventh book. As a grandmother, gardener, and long-time kitchen scraps composter, she hopes we will all continue to find greener and cleaner ways to get from place to place, visit with each other, and take care of our earth for future generations. Naomi lives in Forest Hills, New York, a beautiful area to take walks, and she is the author of picture books about feelings, family, and friendship.
Andrew Fusek Peters
Andrew Fusek Peters was born in 1965. He grew up in London and now lives in rural Shropshire with his wife Polly and two children. Over the past twenty years, he has written and edited over 55 books for children, many critically acclaimed here and in the USA. He is also a performer and storyteller, travelling to schools and literary festivals around the country with his didgeridoo.
He has written six titles for Child's Play. His poems have been recorded for the Poetry Archive.
More information can be found on his and his wife's books on their website.
John Light
For many years John Light taught chemistry at the University of London, but is now a full-time writer, artist and publisher.
He likes art, music, science, gardening and watching the sea.
As well as stories for children, he writes poetry both for children, and for people who used to be children. He also writes science-fiction novels.
Jana Novotny-Hunter
Jana Novotny Hunter was born in Czechoslovakia and grew up in England. A graduate of Hornsey College of Art, she spent many years in the USA, working as a textile designer, teacher, writer and mother. Jana has written more than forty books for children, including Read my Lips, the prizewinning story exploring the communication choices of a Deaf girl.
As a conference speaker and lecturer, Jana focuses on the relationship between image and text in picture books, expertise that has led to her becoming an editor as well as a reviewer. At home with kids of all ages, Jana loves to visit schools and libraries, or to run writing workshops.
Richard O'Neill
Richard O’Neill was born and brought up in a large traditional Romani family in the North of England. He is an award-winning storyteller and writer who tells his original stories in schools, museums, libraries and theatres throughout the UK. A sixth generation storyteller, he grew up in a vigorous oral storytelling tradition, learning his skills from some of the best Travelling storytellers in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Richard is the author of eleven children’s books, and his stories and plays have been broadcast on BBC Radio. His digital stories have been enjoyed throughout the world, and in 2013, he was the recipient of the National Literacy Hero award.
Polly Peters
Polly Peters was born in 1965. She grew up in rural Shropshire and still lives there with her husband and two children.
Together with her husband, she has written and edited over 55 books for children, many critically acclaimed. She is a former drama and English teacher and still directs and writes for the stage.
Two of the titles that she has written for Child's Play: The Ding Dong Bag and It's Raining, Pouring, We're Exploring have previously been short-listed for the Nasen and TES children's book award. Her latest book for Child's Play is The Wim Wom from the Mustard Mill.
More information can be found on her and her husband's books on their website.
Gervase Phinn
Gervase Phinn was born in Rotherham, North Yorkshire on December 27th 1946.
As a child he loved reading and his favourite book was The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde.
A teacher for fourteen years and then a school inspector, these days Gervase spends much of his time visiting schools, running courses for teachers and writing books for children and adults. He gets his ideas from books he has read and by keeping his eyes and ears open.
He lives in a large red-brick house with a greasy-grey slate roof and works in one of the bedrooms which has been converted into a study. It has wall-to-wall bookcases, crammed with books.
He has four children, Richard, Matthew, Dominic and Lizzie.
Katharine Quarmby
Katharine Quarmby is a writer, journalist and Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the London School of Economics. She has written both for children and adults. Her first book for children, Fussy Freya was published in 2008; while her first non-fiction book, Scapegoat: Why We Are Failing Disabled People (Portobello Press, 2011), won the prestigious Ability Media International Literature award. Her second non-fiction book, on Gypsies, Roma and Travellers, No Place to Call Home: Inside the Real Lives of Gypsies and Travellers, was published by Oneworld in 2013.
Susan Rollings
Susan's first picture books were published in the year 2000. She has been a teacher for many years, pursuing her interests in behavioural science, education, mental health, and neuroscience. She sees picture books and art as essential tools in supporting young families, and healthy brain development. Susan currently lives in Oxford, England, and loves to write while watching the foxes and squirrels that inhabit her garden.
Mandy Ross
Mandy Ross worked for Shelter and London Underground, and as a teacher with children and adults, before she started work in children's publishing.
She has written lots of books for children of all ages, including Peekaboo Baby! which was shortlisted for the Sainsbury's Baby Book Award.
She lives in Birmingham with her partner.