The Day War Came

Nicola Davies is the author of more than 50 books for children: fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Her work has been published in more than 10 different languages and has won major awards in the UK, US, France, Italy and Germany.

Nicola trained as a zoologist, taking a degree in Natural Sciences from King's College, Cambridge. She spent some years as a field biologist and studied humpback and sperm whales, and bats, before joining the BBC Natural History Unit as a researcher and then presenter.

Following the start of her writing career, Nicola became a senior lecturer in creative writing, at Bath Spa University but has been writing full time for over a decade. She now regularly runs workshops for children and adults to help them find their voices as writers and advocates for nature. In 2017, she was the first recipient of the SLA’s award for Outstanding Contribution to Children’s Non-fiction and in 2018 had four picture books longlisted for the Greenaway Award.

Rebecca Cobb grew up in Buckinghamshire and Somerset, surrounded by coloured pencils, felt pens, wax crayons, poster paints and pieces of paper. She studied illustration at Falmouth College of Arts and has been living in Falmouth and working as an illustrator ever since.

She has illustrated books by Richard Curtis and Julia Donaldson, and her client list includes The Child Bereavement Charity, Continuum Publishing Group, Cornwall Editions, The Guardian, The Independent, Mabecron Books, Marion Boyars Publishers, Waitrose Food Illustrated and You Magazine.