School information: BookTrust Represents

Emily Hughes likes to walk outside. When she draws and writes she doesn’t want to tell children things plainly — she believes children can discover it themselves. Using three aids she tries to help children understand her stories. One is through environment; using something natural is comforting and familiar. Also, green is a special colour, and joyful to use. Another is through feeling, which is harder to set; she tries to do this by using expression, body language and colour. The most exciting is in details.

She finds that children often see things that adults can’t. She wants children to feel powerful by what they notice. These are gifts made for the observant. She make books for all children, but perhaps she is making books for the child she was. Emily is of Hawaiian heritage and lives in London.

Peter Kalu is the author of three young adult novels: The Silent Striker, Being Me and Zombie XI. The Silent Striker is a semi-autobiographical novel which tells the story of how the world of a teen boy, Marcus, changes when he finds himself becoming deaf. Marcus appears as a side character in Being Me, which features as main protagonist the neuro-atypical Adele Vialli; and Marcus is also glimpsed in Zombie XI. The publishing rights to all three novels have been sold to Ghana and the USA.

Peter has also set onto page two folktales for younger children, Anansi and Tiger’s Stew and The Singer and the Snorer, tales he has told at countless schools within the UK and beyond. He has written nine novels in all, including science fiction, crime and comedy, as well as for the stage and screen. Based in Manchester, he is Artistic Director at Cultureword.

Rikin has a foundation degree from Camberwell College of Arts and a degree in illustration from the University of Westminster. After graduating, he worked as a production illustrator/​creature designer, freelancing in the film industry, mainly working with monsters. He is a proud member of SCBWI-UK and has 300+ Spider-Man comics to his name. When Rikin isn’t drawing you’ll find him listening to the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, munching away at pizza whilst watching a movie, trying to talk to the birds and stray cats in his garden — or working at a primary school as a Year 6 learning support assistant.

His illustrations are predominately geared towards children from ages three up. The themes of his work revolve around friendships and dreams; he feels it’s very important for children to understand that dreams are something that can become a reality, no matter how big or small. Rikin lives in Wembley, London.