Kate Leake

Kate Leake is a freelance illustrator (fully qualified doodler and colourer-in) based in sunny Stoke on Trent.
She studied Illustration for Children's Publishing at the North Wales School of Art and Design and graduated in 2004. Since then, she has been happily scribbling away in her studio Planet Pencil, illustrating numerous children's books and designs for greetings cards. Sometimes she gets asked to work on other exciting projects like murals, posters and wedding invitations.
Kate's work features a combination of hand drawn and digital techniques, with a quirky, humorous style and a great attention to detail.

When not busy doodling, Kate loves playing the saxophone, going for lovely long walks or whipping up a giant fruit cake. Kate li
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Jan Brett
With over thirty three million books in print, Jan Brett is one of the nation's foremost author illustrators of children's books. Jan lives in a seacoast town in Massachusetts, close to where she grew up. During the summer her family moves to a home in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts.
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As a child, Jan Brett decided to be an illustrator and spent many hours reading and drawing. She says, "I remember the special quiet of rainy days when I felt that I could enter the pages of my beautiful picture books. Now I try to recreate that feeling of believing that the imaginary place I'm drawing really exists. The detail in my work helps to convince me, and I hope others as well, that such places might be real."
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Mo Willems
#1 New York Times Bestselling author and illustrator Mo Willems is best known for his Caldecott Honor winning picture books Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and Knuffle Bunny: a cautionary tale.
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In addition to such picture books as Leonardo the Terrible Monster, Edwina the Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She Was Extinct, and Time to Pee, Mo has created the Elephant and Piggie books, a series of early readers, and published You Can Never Find a Rickshaw When it Monsoons, an annotated cartoon journal sketched during a year-long voyage around the world in 1990-91.
The New York Times Book Review called Mo “the biggest new talent to emerge thus far in the 00's."
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Dr. Seuss
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Theodor Seuss Geisel was born 2 March 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts. He graduated Dartmouth College in 1925, and proceeded on to Oxford University with the intent of acquiring a doctorate in literature. At Oxford he met Helen Palmer, who he wed in 1927. He returned from Europe in 1927, and began working for a magazine called Judge, the leading humor magazine in America at the time, submitting both cartoons and humorous articles for them. Additionally, he was submitting cartoons to Life, Vanity Fair and Liberty. In some of his works, he'd made reference to an insecticide called Flit. These references gained notice, and led to a contract to draw comic ads fo -
Julia Donaldson
Growing up
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I grew up in a tall Victorian London house with my parents, grandmother, aunt, uncle, younger sister Mary and cat Geoffrey (who was really a prince in disguise. Mary and I would argue about which of us would marry him).
Mary and I were always creating imaginary characters and mimicking real ones, and I used to write shows and choreograph ballets for us. A wind-up gramophone wafted out Chopin waltzes.
I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married.
Busking and books
Before Malcolm and I had our three sons we used to go busking together and I would write special songs for each country; the best one was in Italian about pasta.
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Rebecca Stead
Rebecca Stead is the New York Times bestselling author of When You Reach Me, Liar & Spy, First Light, Goodbye Stranger, Bob, and, most recently, The List of Things That Will Not Change. Her books have been awarded the Newbery Medal, the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award for Fiction and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize.
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Rebecca lives in New York City, where she is always on the lookout for her next story idea. -
Oliver Sacks
Oliver Wolf Sacks, CBE, was a British neurologist residing in the United States, who has written popular books about his patients, the most famous of which is Awakenings, which was adapted into a film of the same name starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro.
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Sacks was the youngest of four children born to a prosperous North London Jewish couple: Sam, a physician, and Elsie, a surgeon. When he was six years old, he and his brother were evacuated from London to escape The Blitz, retreating to a boarding school in the Midlands, where he remained until 1943. During his youth, he was a keen amateur chemist, as recalled in his memoir Uncle Tungsten. He also learned to share his parents' enthusiasm for medicine and entered The Queen's College, O -
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Rachel Bright
Rachel is a writer of words, drawer of pictures and champion of silver linings. She exhibits widely, writes tirelessly and frequently creates slightly unhinged characters.
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Her written work includes children’s stories and poems, clever advertising copy and lots of other stuff besides. Her illustrative work is a smorgasboard of giant, hand-printed poems, mind-bogglingly detailed gouache illustrations and a cacophony of quirky prints and etchings.
She explores the lovliness of words and the magic of pictures, revelling in a world of jam-eating miniature bears and other made-up animals.
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Jarvis
Jarvis is an illustrator and animator who has worked as both a record jacket designer and an animation director. He lives in Manchester, England.
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Anthony DeStefano
Anthony DeStefano is the bestselling author of 20 Christian books for children and adults, including: A Travel Guide to Heaven, Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To, Angels All Around Us, Little Star, and The Donkey that No One Could Ride. He has received many prestigious awards from religious organizations worldwide for his efforts to advance Christian beliefs in modern culture.
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Drew Daywalt
Ever since his childhood in one of Ohio’s most haunted houses, writer director Drew Daywalt has been writing escapist fantasy and building worlds of his own. With a degree in Creative Writing, and a concentration in Children’s Literature from Emerson College in Boston, Daywalt set off to Hollywood where he spent years writing for Disney and Universal on such beloved shows as Timon & Pumba, Buzz Lightyear, and Woody Woodpecker, and where his animated series The Wacky World of Tex Avery garnered an Emmy nomination.
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His first trip into live action landed him studio screenwriting and feature film directing work with such Hollywood luminaries as Quentin Tarrantino, Lawrence Bender, Tony Scott, Brett Ratner and Jerry Bruckheimer.
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Alice Hemming
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Doug Salati
Doug Salati is an illustrator living in New York City. He received his MFA from the School of Visual Arts and was a 2015 Sendak Fellow. His illustrations have received recognition from American Illustration, 3x3, and the Society of Illustrators. In a Small Kingdom, written by Tomie dePaola, is his debut picture book.
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Adam Kay
Adam Kay is an award-winning comedian and writer. He previously worked for many years as a junior doctor. His first book "This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor" was a Sunday Times number one bestseller for over a year and has sold over two million copies. It has been translated into 37 languages and is winner of four National Book Awards, including Book of the Year, and will be a major new comedy drama for the BBC.
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His second book "Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas" was an instant Sunday Times number one bestseller and sold over 500,000 copies in its first few weeks.
"Dear NHS", edited by Adam Kay, was an instant Sunday Times number one with all profits donated to charity. His first children's book "Kay's Anatomy" will b -
Stef Wade
Stef is the best-selling author of A PLACE FOR PLUTO, THE VERY LAST LEAF & Q&U CALL IT QUITS, MOVING TO MARS and EVERY DAY'S A HOLIDAY.
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A PLACE FOR PLUTO was a 2018 Barnes & Noble story time pick, 2019 TXLA 2×2 Reading List Book, 2019 UK Summer Reading Challenge book, a 2019 LITA Golden Duck Notable Picture Book, and runner-up for the 2020 Magnolia Book Award.
Stef is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). She’s bounced all over the midwest with her college sweetheart husband and her three historically and literary named brood of boys and currently resides in the greater Milwaukee area.
Stef is represented by Christa Heschke of McIntosh & Otis.
For more information, visit www.stefwade.com.