Dapo Adeola
Dapo Adeola is an award-winning illustrator and designer who creates characters and images that challenge expectations around race and gender in a fun and upbeat way. He is the co-creator and illustrator of bestselling picture book Look Up! - winner of the Waterstones Children's Book Prize and the number 1 debut picture book of 2019. London born and bred but of Nigerian heritage, when he's not busy cooking up new characters and adventures, you can find Dapo running illustration and character design workshops with children or organising events to help highlight the possibilities of a career in illustration to underrepresented members of the Black diaspora.
Books
Clean Up!
Author: Nathan Bryon
Illustrator: Dapo Adeola
Publisher: Puffin
Interest age: 4-8
Rocket loves visiting her Grammy and Grampy in the Caribbean, especially splashing in the waves with her cool surfing Grammy - but when Rocket finds a baby turtle washed up on the shore, tangled in plastic, she decides something must be done. It's time to clean up!
Hey You! An empowering celebration of growing up black
Author: Dapo Adeola
Illustrator: Various
Publisher: Puffin
Interest age: 3-5
A baby is born to loving parents, but as she grows up it’s hard for her to find books to read containing girls that look like her. Sometimes, as she gets older, she encounters racism, and life can be very hard. Yet, she is reminded that she stands on the shoulders of the great black community that has come before her – and that she has the power to be anythi…
Look Up!
Author: Nathan Bryon Illustrator: Dapo Adeola
Publisher: Puffin
Interest age: 4-7
Reading age: 6+
Nathan Bryon and Dapo Adeola’s charming picture book gifts us with a gorgeous character in Rocket, a girl whose passion for all things space is as inspiring to the reader as her heroine Mae Jemison is to her.
My Dad is a Grizzly Bear
Author: Swapna Haddow
Illustrator: Dapo Adeola
Publisher: Macmillan
Interest age: 4-5
The dad in this book is very bearish - he loves honey, chases his little boy around while growling, and naps everywhere. And there's nothing like a grizzly bear hug from your dad to make you feel safe. A charming picture book celebrating all the bear-like dads out there.
My Mum is a Lioness
Author: Swapna Haddow Illustrator: Dapo Adeola
Publisher: Macmillan
Interest age: 4-5
The delightful sequel to Haddow and Adeola’s My Dad is a Grizzly Bear features a powerful, energetic mum who is very much the centre of the family, cheering on her children and loving everyone fearlessly.
Space Detectives
Author: Mark Powers
Illustrator: Dapo Adeola
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Interest age: 6-11
Reading age: 7+
A summer holiday job selling ice cream aboard the exotic space station of Starville turns into a race against time to avoid a catastrophic collision with the moon. Bring on the Space Detectives!
Space Detectives: Extra Weird Creatures
Author: Mark Powers Illustrator: Dapo Adeola
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Interest age: 5-9
Reading age: 7+
Powers’ and Adeola’s second book in this illustrated series, ideal for newly independent readers, is delightfully fast paced, silly and beautifully illustrated in black and white. Expect plenty of laughs and some brilliant space-themed scene-setting.
We're Going to Find the Monster
Author: Malorie Blackman
Illustrator: Dapo Adeola
Publisher: Puffin
Interest age: 3-5
A lovely slightly fairy tale-inspired tale about a family with two younger siblings and a teenager getting ready for breakfast, featuring the wonderful storytelling and word wizardry of Malorie Blackman and the illustrations of prize-winning Dapo Adeola.