Featured Authors or Illustrators are selected each month and archived here. Check back often to find more suggestions for great reading.
March 2009
Paul Stewart & Chris Riddell
Brief Biography
Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell have been working together for a long time. They are the creators of the best-selling Edge Chronicles Series and recently published the tenth and final volume. They have also created the Far-Flung Adventure Series, and a new series called Barnaby Grimes, as well as the Tolkien spoof Muddle Earth.
Paul Stewart published his first book in 1988 and now has more than 50 titles published- everything from picture books to football stories, fantasy and horror. He lives in Brighton with his wife and children.
Chris Riddell is an accomplished graphic artist and his distinctive line drawings are familiar to both children and adults. He has illustrated over 100 books for children including Pirate Diary by Christopher Platt and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver. His political cartoons appear regularly in a number of UK publications.
Barnaby Grimes series
Barnaby Grimes is a ticktock lad, a paid messenger in victorian London, highstacking his way around the city both day and night. After an attack by an enormous dog and the disappearance of a friend, Barnaby Grimes finds himself mixed up in a horrifying mystery of crooked doctors, poor patients, mysterious tonics, and very expensive furs. This is a great adventure, just creepy and gory enough. In Return of the Emerald Skull (February 2009), something strange is happening at a local boys' school and it has something to do with the headmaster's avian obsession and his collection of taxidermy specimens. Watch for the third book in the series due out in June 2009: Legion of the Dead.
The Edge Chronicles series
From our Summer 2004 Staff Picks Page: I happened to have bought the first of The Edge Chronicles while visiting England last year, and I was thrilled when I discovered they were going to be published in the U.S. The Edge Chronicles are a mixture of science-fiction, fantasy and adventure. In Beyond the Deepwoods, Twig realizes he is not a woodtroll, even though he has been raised by a family of them and always believed himself to be one. He sets out on a journey through the treacherous Deepwoods to discover who he really is, and does what he has always been told never to do: he leaves the path. In his journey through the Deepwoods he encounters a variety of strange creatures both dangerous and friendly and ultimately discovers who he is and joins a crew of sky pirates. In Stormchaser, Twig's adventures with the Sky Pirates continue. The crew of the Stormchaser must fly into a giant storm in search of stormphrax, a precious substance created at the heart of a storm at its most intense power. The Edge Chronicles are great fun to read, not only for the stories with their cast of strange and fascinating creatures both friendly and dangerous, but for Chris Riddell's fabulous illustrations which can be found on nearly every page of the books. (Ages 9+)
The Far-Flung Adventures
Chris Riddell, author and illustrator
The Ottoline Series (HarperCollins)
This quirky illustrated novel for younger readers follows Ottoline Brown and her best friend, a Norwegian Bog Beast named Mr. Munroe as they tackle the mystery of disappearing pedigreed dogs. Riddell's skill as a writer and illustrator has been demonstrated many times in his work with Paul Stewart on the Edge Chronicles and the new Barnaby Grimes series. Ottoline is a miniature masterpiece and a joy to read. The latest, Ottoline Goes to School, is scheduled to be releaed in July 2009.
The Emperor of Absurdia (HarperCollins)
Follow the Emperor of Absurdia through his day. First the Emperor is dressed with help from the hairy wardrobe monster. After a scarf hunt "which took quite some time" the Emperor was served breakfast, then supper, then lunch, which hatched. The Emperor goes on a hunt for his lunch, and finds a mama dragon who chases him until he lands in the arms of the wardrobe monster. At last he goes to bed and has the most extraordinary dream. . . Detailed, humorous, wonderful pictures show all the absurdities of the Emperor's day, from his waking "to the hoots of the sky fish nibbling the umbrella trees" all the way to his very extraordinary dream of normality.
Books illustrated by Chris Riddell