Lauren Child is the multi-talented prize-winning creator of the characters Charlie and Lola, Clarice Bean, Hubert Horatio Bobton-Trent, and also Ruby Redfort. She was born and grew up in Marlborough, Wiltshire, where her father led the art department at Marlborough College and her mother taught primary school.
She is a British writer and illustrator who has won the Smarties Gold Award, Smarties Bronze Award, Kate Greenaway Medal, been shortlisted for the Children’s Book of the Year at the British Book Awards, and was announced as the new Children’s Laureate for the UK on 7 June 2017.
She studied Art at Manchester Polytechnic and London Art School, after which she worked in a variety of jobs, and also started her own company, ‘Chandeliers for the People’, making exotic lampshades.
In 1999 she had two picture books published, I Want a Pet! (1999) and Clarice Bean, That’s Me (1999), the latter being shortlisted for the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize. In 2000 she won a Kate Greenaway Medal for I Will Not Ever, Never Eat a Tomato (2000) and a second Nestlé Smarties Book Prize in 2002 for That Pesky Rat (2002). In the same year, she wrote her first children’s novel, Utterly Me, Clarice Bean (2002). Her second book in this series, Clarice Bean Spells Trouble was shortlisted for the 2005 British Book Awards Children’s Book of the Year.
Apart from being an author and illustrator of her own books, she is also the illustrator of the Definitely Daisy series by Jenny Oldfield, and others.
Her work includes:
Pick your poison (2017)
Ruby Redfort feel the fear (2016)
Absolutely one thing (2016)
Blink and you die (2016)
The New Small Person (2015)
Ruby Redfort, Pick Your Poison (2015)
Ruby Redfort, Feel The Fear (2014)
Ruby Redfort, Hang In There Bozo (2013)
Ruby Redfort, Catch Your Death (2013)
Ruby Redfort, Take Your Last Breath (2012)
Ruby Redfort, Look Into My Eyes (2011)
Slightly Invisible (2010)
I Completely Know About Guinea Pigs (2008)
Look After Your Planet (2008)
Say Cheese (2008)
I’m Really Ever So Not Well (2008)
Charlie and Lola (2008)
Snow Is My Favourite and My Best (2008)
I Am Really, Really Concentrating (2008)
Goldilocks and the Three Bears (2008)
My Completely Best Story Collection (2008)
The Actual Three Classic Charlie and Lola Books (2008)
I Will Be Especially Very (2008)
I Can Do Anything That’s Everything All on My Own (2008)
I’m Just Not Keen on Spiders (2008)
But I Am An Alligator (2008)
My Extremely Smallish Little Library (2008)
Clarice Bean: My Utterley Complete Collection (2008)
The Pagan House (2007)
This Is Actually My Party (2007)
You Can Be My Friend (2007)
I’ve Won, No I’ve Won, No I’ve Won (2006)
We Honestly Can Look After Your Dog (2006)
My Haircut (2006)
My School Play (2006)
My Wobbly Tooth Must Not Ever Fall Out (2006)
I Absolutely Must Do Colouring-In Now (2006)
Whoops! But It Wasn’t Me (2006)
Clarice Bean, Don’t Look Now (2005)
Beward of the Storybook Wolves (2005)
Bat Cat (2005)
The Princess and the Pea (2005)
But Excuse Me That Is My Book (2004)
Hubert Horatio Bobton-Trent(2004)
Clarice Bean Spells Trouble (2004)
I Am TOO Absolutely Small for School (2003)
Dan’s Angel: A Detective’s Guide to the Language of Painting (2002)
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Book? (2002)
Utterly Me, Clarice Bean (2002)
That Pesky Rat (2002)
What Planet Are You From Clarice Bean? (2001)
My Dream Bed (2001)
I Am Not Sleepy and I Will Not Go to Bed (2001)
My Uncle is a Hunkle Says Clarice Bean (2000)
I Will Not Ever Never Eat a Tomato (2000)
Beware of the Storybook Wolves (2000)
