Jarvis Wins V&A Award 2017!

Have you heard about Alan, and his BIG SCARY TEETH?!

We are so proud of Bright artist, Jarvis — this years winner of the coveted V&A Illustration award.

Alan is big and scary… Those teeth. Although — things in the jungle aren’t quite what they seem and the plot twist is so joyous, you will be rolling around laughing along with your children. The wonderful thing, and the triumph of this award, is the story behind the book — that all in fact was nearly lost with Alan, when only days before giving the final artwork to his publisher at Walker Books, Jarvis’ studio was burgled.

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“My studio was burgled and everything was taken – my computer, back-ups, scanner, lightbox, everything! I didn’t have it backed up online so I had lost the entire book. It all seems like a bad dream now but I had to re-do the entire book from scratch. I can’t say I enjoyed that, but I’m impressed that I was able to just re-do it and in many parts it was better. The irony is that the plot of the book is about stealing!” Jarvis

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From left to right: The winner! Jarvis; Bright Founder and MD Vicki Willden-Lebrecht, Senior Commissioning Editor, Maria Tunney and Picture Book Publisher, Deirdre McDermott from Walker Books, publishers of Alan’s Big Scary Teeth; and Benji Davies, who was also shortlisted for the award.

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Benji Davies pictured with the sequel to his award winning picture book, The Storm Whale: The Storm Whale in Winter, also shortlisted for this year’s award. Top left: Lara Hancock and Jane Buckley from Simon and Schuster — the incredible team behind the book.

Read more about the making of The Storm Whale books here.

Celebrations with Jarvis and the team at Walker!

Picture Book Publisher, Deirdre McDermott, Bright Managing Agent, Arabella Stein, and Vicki Willden-Lebrecht.

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Last year saw Jarvis and Alan’s Big Scary Teeth in the spotlight a number of times, beginning with the front page of The New York Times!

Alan’s Big Scary Teeth also featured in the Best Books for Children, Spring Editor’s Picks on Amazon.com and was chosen for the Bookstart Treasure Pack, sent to pre-schoolers aged 3-4 across the country. Read the Bookseller article here.

The brilliant Benji Davies, was shortlisted this year in the book illustration category of The V&A Award, for his sequel to The Storm Whale; The Storm Whale in Winter. Benji’s new picture book, The Grotlyn, will be published in September 2017 with HarperCollins.

Benji himself, is no stranger to winning awards — His picture book debut, The Storm Whale won the inaugural Oscar’s Book Prize and was Dutch Picture Book Of The Year 2017. His second, Grandad’s Island, won the children’s book category of the AOI World Illustration Awards 2015 and was crowned Best Picture Book and overall Children’s Book of the Year at the Sainsbury’s Children’s Book Awards 2015.

Cover artwork from The Grotlyn. Read about Benji’s new partnership with Harpercollins in this article by The Bookseller.

Awards are an important benchmark in an artists career. In this article, authors and illustrators including Benji Davies talk candidly about their feelings on awards and the industry as a whole. It’s an incredible read with heart-felt accounts from some of the top picture book authors and illustrators of today.

The V&A award has previously been won by bright artist, Yasmeen Ismail, for her picture book, Time for Bed Fred! Read more here. Since that time Yasmeen has gone on to create some of the best loved children’s picture books, recently launching a new series with publisher, Laurence King.