Shirley Hughes was born and raised in West Kirby, a quiet seaside town on the Wirral where she spent her wartime childhood drawing, painting and making up stories with her two sisters. She consequently spent a year at Liverpool Art School studying fashion and costume design followed by fine art at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford. She soon settled in Notting Hill developing her distinctive style using pen and ink, watercolour and gouache with which she infuses ordinary domestic scenes with a mixture of cosiness and magic. Shirley is one of our best-loved creators of books for young children. She has won major awards and created some of the most enduring characters of children’s literature.

In 1999 she was awarded an OBE for her services to children’s literature.