Walker to publish Helen Oxenbury biography

Walker Books will this autumn release a book about the life and work of Helen Oxenbury, who was given the BookTrust Lifetime Achievement Award last week.

Helen Oxenbury: A Life in Illustration will be written by Leonard S. Marcus and and feature contributions from authors Michael Rosen, Martin Waddell, Trish Cooke, Mem Fox and Phyllis Root, as well as illustrations by Oxenbury herself. It will be released in a special cloth-bound, hardback edition in October 2018 by Walker Books in the UK, Walker Books Australia and Candlewick Press in the US.

Deirdre McDermott, picture book publisher and creative director at Walker, said: “I am deeply pleased that Walker Books is publishing this elegant and beautiful book celebrating Helen’s remarkable career… This book showcases the astonishing breadth and variety of illustration that Helen has drawn for more than eighty books since first being published by Heinemann in 1967. It is a book that illuminates her life behind the pictures, too; as a child, a student, a mother and above all, as an artist.”

Author Marcus teaches children’s literature and child development at New York University and has written several titles about children’s books, including The Wand in the Word: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy; Funny Business: Conversations with Writers of Comedy; and Show Me a Story! Why Picture Books Matter: Conversations with 21 of the World’s Most Celebrated Illustrators.