Emily Gravett (born 1972) is an
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
author and
illustrator
An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicat ...
of
children's
A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...
picture books
A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. With the narrative told primarily through text, they are distinct from comics, which do so primarily through sequential images. The images ...
. For her debut book ''
Wolves
The wolf (''Canis lupus''; plural, : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been reco ...
'' published in 2005 and ''
Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears
''Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears'' is a children's picture book written and illustrated by Emily Gravett, published by Macmillan in 2007. It won the annual Kate Greenaway Medal from the professional librarians as the year's best-illustrated c ...
'' published three years later, she won the annual
Kate Greenaway Medal
The Kate Greenaway Medal is a British literary award that annually recognises "distinguished illustration in a book for children". It is conferred upon the illustrator by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) ...
recognising the year's best-illustrated British children's book.
Life
Emily Gravett was born in
Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
, England, the second daughter of a printmaker and an art teacher. After her parents split, she lived with her mother the teacher, but she and her father would "go out drawing" in museums. She left school at 16 with
GCSE
The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a particular subject, taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. State schools in Scotland use the Scottish Qualifications Certificate instead. Private sc ...
qualification only in Art (grade A) and travelled Great Britain for eight years, living in "a variety of vehicles" and meeting her partner Mik.
[
By 1997, they had settled in ]Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
and had a daughter, Oleander (Olly).
Gravett "realised that I wanted a career, and drawing was my only skill", so she began an art course. The family returned to Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
in 2001, where persistence rather than qualifications got her an interview for the illustration degree course at the local university. She matriculated that September and graduated three years later.[
As of June 2008, she lives in Brighton with Mik and Olly.][ She works in an ]attic
An attic (sometimes referred to as a '' loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...
studio
A studio is an artist or worker's workroom. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, origami, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial design ...
"with views of the South Downs
The South Downs are a range of chalk hills that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the Eastbourne Downland Estate, East Sussex, in the east. ...
".[
]
Career
During her second year as a student, Gravett entered one of her school projects for the Macmillan Prize for Children's Illustration, a competitive annual award to art students established in 1985.[ She earned a "Highly Commended" then and won the prize in her final year, when she entered two books that the judges ranked first and second. That ensured a contract publication of '']Wolves
The wolf (''Canis lupus''; plural, : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been reco ...
'' by Macmillan Children's Books (now the Children's Books imprint
Imprint or imprinting may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Imprint'' (TV series), Canadian television series
* "Imprint" (''Masters of Horror''), episode of TV show ''Masters of Horror''
* ''Imprint'' (film), a 2007 independent drama/thriller film
...
of Pan Macmillan
Pan Books is a publishing imprint (trade name), imprint that first became active in the 1940s and is now part of the United Kingdom, British-based Macmillan Publishers, owned by the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group of Germany.
Pan Books b ...
). The editorial director later said, "It was quite obvious who the winner was going to be. Emily entered ''Wolves'' in a beautiful dummy format, and really we had to do very little work on it before it was published. She's a bookbinder as well as an artist; a real creator of books."[ Two years after graduation she won the ]Kate Greenaway Medal
The Kate Greenaway Medal is a British literary award that annually recognises "distinguished illustration in a book for children". It is conferred upon the illustrator by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) ...
from the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals
The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, since 2017 branded CILIP: The library and information association (pronounced ), is a professional body for librarians, information specialists and knowledge managers in the U ...
, recognising ''Wolves'' as the previous year's (2005) best-illustrated new children's book published in the United Kingdom.[ By that time, rights had been sold in five other countries.][
Next year (officially dated 2007) she made the Greenaway shortlist for '']Orange Pear Apple Bear
''Orange Pear Apple Bear'' is a children's book written by award-winning author and illustrator Emily Gravett. Throughout the book only the four words "orange, pear, apple" and "bear" are used, with the exception of a single use of the word "there ...
''. The year after that she won a second Medal (no one has won three) for her fourth book, ''Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears
''Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears'' is a children's picture book written and illustrated by Emily Gravett, published by Macmillan in 2007. It won the annual Kate Greenaway Medal from the professional librarians as the year's best-illustrated c ...
'', and made the shortlist as well for fifth book, ''Monkey and Me''.[ ]WorldCat
WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCL ...
reports that ''Orange Pear Apple Bear'' is her work most widely held in participating libraries. According to one library summary, it " plores concepts of color, shape, and food using only five simple words, as a bear juggles and plays."[
For 2008 Gravett was official illustrator for World Book Day (United Kingdom)][ — an honor with duties such as specially commissioned illustrations and recorded demonstration of characters from her books.
The former ]Children's Laureate
Children's Laureate, now known as the 'Waterstones Children's Laureate' is a prestigious position awarded in the United Kingdom once every two years to a "writer or illustrator of children's books to celebrate outstanding achievement in their fie ...
(2011–2013) Julia Donaldson
Julia Donaldson (born Julia Catherine Shields; born ) is an English writer and playwright, and the 2011–2013 Children's Laureate. She is best known for her popular rhyming stories for children, especially those illustrated by Axel Scheffler, ...
wrote and Gravett illustrated ''Cave Baby'', a 32-page picture book featuring a prehistoric baby's tour atop a woolly mammoth
The woolly mammoth (''Mammuthus primigenius'') is an extinct species of mammoth that lived during the Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with '' Mammuthus subp ...
, published by Macmillan in 2010. It has been published in Welsh-language
Welsh ( or ) is a Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup that is native to the Welsh people. Welsh is spoken natively in Wales, by some in England, and in Y Wladfa (the Welsh colony in Chubut Province, Argentina). Historically, it has al ...
and Chinese editions but not in the United States.
Style
Gravett completed ''Wolves'' in six weeks as an illustration course project and added only the back endpaper
The endpapers or end-papers of a book (also known as the endsheets) are the pages that consist of a double-size sheet folded, with one half pasted against an inside cover (the pastedown), and the other serving as the first free page (the free end ...
spread during the editorial process. Some projects take longer but she wrote and sketched ''Orange Pear Apple Bear
''Orange Pear Apple Bear'' is a children's book written by award-winning author and illustrator Emily Gravett. Throughout the book only the four words "orange, pear, apple" and "bear" are used, with the exception of a single use of the word "there ...
'' in merely 11 hours, waking one Mother's Day with the four words in her head and staying in bed for "the whole book in one go".[
Gravett's books are interactive. She encouraged the pet dog to chew the dummy for ''Wolves'' "to simulate the impact of the wolf's teeth". That didn't work so she chewed it herself.][
She wanted '']Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears
''Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears'' is a children's picture book written and illustrated by Emily Gravett, published by Macmillan in 2007. It won the annual Kate Greenaway Medal from the professional librarians as the year's best-illustrated c ...
'' to look genuinely chewed, so she painted yoghurt
Yogurt (; , from tr, yoğurt, also spelled yoghurt, yogourt or yoghourt) is a food produced by bacterial fermentation of milk. The bacteria used to make yogurt are known as ''yogurt cultures''. Fermentation of sugars in the milk by these bact ...
on plain white paper and laid it in the cage of the two pet rats. They nibbled it and peed on it, which she scanned to produce background for drawing.[
The front cover illustration shows the title ''Little Mouse's ]Emily Gravett's Big Book of Fears'', a mouse looking through a hole it has chewed, and damage along the book edges.[
''Little Mouse'' is also a ]movable book
The term pop-up book is often applied to any book with three-dimensional pages, although it is properly the umbrella term for movable book, pop-ups, tunnel books, transformations, volvelles, flaps, pull-tabs, pop-outs, pull-downs, and more, each ...
, with "lift flaps and a fold-out map" (quoting a review).[
]
Works
As author and illustrator
* ''Wolves
The wolf (''Canis lupus''; plural, : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been reco ...
'' (Macmillan, 2005, )
: —published as ''Wolves'' by "Emily Grrrabbit" in the United States (Simon & Schuster, 2006)
* ''Orange Pear Apple Bear
''Orange Pear Apple Bear'' is a children's book written by award-winning author and illustrator Emily Gravett. Throughout the book only the four words "orange, pear, apple" and "bear" are used, with the exception of a single use of the word "there ...
'' (2006)
* ''Meerkat Mail'' (2006)
* ''Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears
''Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears'' is a children's picture book written and illustrated by Emily Gravett, published by Macmillan in 2007. It won the annual Kate Greenaway Medal from the professional librarians as the year's best-illustrated c ...
'' (2007)
* ''Monkey and Me'' (2007)
* ''The Odd Egg
''The Odd Egg'' is a children's picture book written and illustrated by British illustrator Emily Gravett.
Plot
An odd duck finds an old egg. He is jealous of mother birds having eggs. So he adopts the big egg that has green spots that matches ...
'' (2008)
* ''Spells'' (2008)
* ''Dogs'' (2009)
* ''The Rabbit Problem'' (2009)
* ''Blue Chameleon'' (2010)
* ''Wolf Won't Bite!'' (2011)
* ''Again!'' (2011)
* ''Matilda's Cat
''Matilda's Cat'' is a 2012 children's picture book by Emily Gravett. It is about Matilda, a girl dressed in a ginger-striped cat costume, who attempts to involve her similarly ginger-striped cat in various activities to no avail but then eventua ...
'' (2 August 2012)
* '' Little Mouse's Big Book of Beasts'' (2013)
* ''Bear and Hare: Go Fishing'' (2014)
* ''Bear and Hare: Snow!'' (2014)
* ''Bear and Hare: Where's Bear?'' (2015)
* ''Bear and Hare: Mine!'' (2016)
* ''Tidy'' (2016)
* ''Old Hat'' (2017)
* ''Cyril and Pat'' (2018)
* ''Meerkat Christmas'' (2019)
* ''Too Much Stuff'' (2020)
* ''10 Cats'' (2022)
As illustrator
* ''Cave Baby'' (2010), written by Julia Donaldson
Julia Donaldson (born Julia Catherine Shields; born ) is an English writer and playwright, and the 2011–2013 Children's Laureate. She is best known for her popular rhyming stories for children, especially those illustrated by Axel Scheffler, ...
* '' The Imaginary'' (2014), written by A. F. Harrold
* ''The Afterwards'' (2018), written by A. F. Harrold
* ''Evie and the Animals'' (2020), written by Matt Haig
Matt Haig (born 3 July 1975) is an English author and journalist. He has written both fiction and non-fiction books for children and adults, often in the speculative fiction genre.
Early life
Haig was born on 3 July 1975 in Sheffield. He went ...
* ''Evie in the Jungle'' (2020), written by Matt Haig
Matt Haig (born 3 July 1975) is an English author and journalist. He has written both fiction and non-fiction books for children and adults, often in the speculative fiction genre.
Early life
Haig was born on 3 July 1975 in Sheffield. He went ...
* ''A Song of Gladness'' (2021), written by Michael Morpurgo
Sir Michael Andrew Bridge Morpurgo (''né'' Bridge; 5 October 1943) is an English book author, poet, playwright, and librettist who is known best for children's novels such as ''War Horse'' (1982). His work is noted for its "magical storytellin ...
* ''Locked Out Lily'' (2021), written by Nick Lake
Awards and recognitions
Gravett has won annual British book awards three times.
;Awards
* ''Wolves
The wolf (''Canis lupus''; plural, : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been reco ...
'' won the 2005 Kate Greenaway Medal
The Kate Greenaway Medal is a British literary award that annually recognises "distinguished illustration in a book for children". It is conferred upon the illustrator by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) ...
.[
* ''Monkey and Me'' won the 2007 Booktrust Best Emerging Illustrator for children up to five-years-old.
* '']Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears
''Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears'' is a children's picture book written and illustrated by Emily Gravett, published by Macmillan in 2007. It won the annual Kate Greenaway Medal from the professional librarians as the year's best-illustrated c ...
'' won the 2008 Kate Greenaway Medal.[
* ''Tidy'' won the 2017 Indie Book Awards for Picture Book category.
;Runners-up, etc.
* 2005, ''Wolves'' was bronze runner-up for the ]Smarties Prize
Smarties are colour-varied sugar-coated chocolate confectionery. They have been manufactured since 1937, originally by H.I. Rowntree & Company in the United Kingdom, and now by Nestlé.
Smarties are oblate spheroids with a minor axis of abo ...
, ages 0–5 years.
* 2006, ''Orange Pear Apple Bear
''Orange Pear Apple Bear'' is a children's book written by award-winning author and illustrator Emily Gravett. Throughout the book only the four words "orange, pear, apple" and "bear" are used, with the exception of a single use of the word "there ...
'' made the shortlist for the Booktrust Early Years Pre-School Award.
* 2007, ''Orange Pear Apple Bear'' made the Greenaway shortlist.[
* 2007, ''Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears'' was bronze runner-up for the Smarties Prize, ages 6–8 years.
* 2007, ''Wolves'' made the shortlist for the Hampshire Illustrated Book Award.
* 2008, ''Monkey and Me'' made the Greenaway shortlist.][
* 2012, ''Wolf Won't Bite!'' made the Greenaway shortlist.][
* 2013, ''Matilda's Cat'' made the Indie Book Awards shortlist.
* 2022, ''Too Much Stuff'' made the Greenaway shortlist.]
Notes
References
External links
Emilygravett.com
archived 2011-01-28
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gravett, Emily
1972 births
Living people
Date of birth missing (living people)
English illustrators
British children's book illustrators
English children's writers
English women writers
British women children's writers
Writers who illustrated their own writing
Kate Greenaway Medal winners