Farmer Duck

I was read to a lot as a child by people who knew how to read stories. These stories came alive for me, and the love of story has stayed with me ever since.
I live where I lived as a child, and nearly all my stories come from things that have happened to me here, at the foot of the Mountain of Mourne. I work in an old stone barn beside my home, and dream my stories in the garden and on long walks on the beach in front of my house. I never write anywhere else. This is where I belong.

Growing up in Ipswich, England, Helen Oxenbury loved nothing more than drawing. As a teenager, she entered art school and basked in the pleasure of drawing, and nothing but drawing, all day. During vacations she helped out at the Ipswich Repertory Theatre workshop, mixing paints for set designers. It was there that she decided her future lay in theatre design. While studying costume design, however, Helen was told by a teacher, "This is hopeless, you know. You ought to go and do illustrations - you're much more interested in the character, and we don't know who's going to play the part!"