Polly Dunbar

Original picture book artwork by Polly Dunbar is available for purchase from Children’s Book Illustration.

Congratulations to Polly & Joyce Dunbar for winning the Mal Peet Award 2015 for Pat-a-Cake Baby!

Polly Dunbar is one of the most successful children’s book illustrators around today. After a foundation course in Norwich she went on to study illustration at Brighton Art School. She is the daughter of the distinguished author Joyce Dunbar with whom she collaborated with on the picture book Shoe Baby. She is also the illustrator of My Dad’s a Birdman and The boy who climbed into the Moon, both written by David Almond. More recently she has written and illustrated Tilly and Friends, a series of six books following the gentle dramas of a wise little girl and her animal friends. Tilly and her friends are now television stars with their own animated series on CBeebies. There’s also a fantastic new website for all Tilly fans young and old, www.tillyandfriends.com

Her bestselling book Penguin has won numerous awards including the Book Trust Early Year’s Award 2007, the Nestle Silver Children’s Book Prize 2007, the Practical Pre-School Award 2007, the Red House Children’s Book of the Year Award 2008 and was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal. Here’s a Little Poem won the Ibby Honour Book 2008

Polly was The Book Trust’s Writer in Residence during 2011. She is also co-founder of Long Nose Puppets, an award winning theatre company that has made successful adaptations of the books Shoe Baby, Fly Away Katie, Penguin, Arthur’s Dream Boat and launching for Christmas 2016 will be Pat-a-Cake Baby, her tenth anniversary show!

On top of all this, Polly somehow manages to find time to teach creative writing at the Arvon Foundation and run workshops at festivals, schools and universities all over the world!