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Authors & illustrators
Cressida Cowell Kit de Waal Bernardine Evaristo Sarah McIntyre Philip Pullman Axel Scheffler David Walliams
Cressida Cowell Author, children’s laureate
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How to Train Your Dragon author and illustrator Cowell was announced as the Waterstones children’s laure-
ate over the summer, succeeding fellow author-illustrator Lauren Child. She began her two-year term by launching a 10-point charter, setting out her desire for compulsory libraries in schools and for children to have “free-ranging” creative time. In her day job, her books sales have also risen through the TCM for the year, spiking 30% on 2018 to date with the release of her third Wizards of Once book, Knock Three Times.
Bernardine Evaristo Author
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Evaristo made history in October, becoming the first black woman to win the Booker Prize. Penguin Random
House ordered a re-print of Girl, Woman, Other days later, with Waterstones reporting high demand. The polyphonic novel, featuring the lives of 12 different characters—ranging from a lesbian theatre dramatist to a Northumbrian farmer—has since soared 460% in volume, outselling the rest of Evaristo’s backlist combined. Rights have been sold in 21 languages, with an auction currently ongoing for film rights.
Sarah McIntyre Illustrator
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Illustrator, campaigner and hat-wearer extraordinaire, McIntyre launched Pictures Mean Business in 2015 after
being frustrated by a lack of recognition for illustrators in the industry—she herself was uncredited when Oliver and the Seawigs was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. Focusing on the economic case for including illustrators’ names in meta- data, Pictures Mean Business took on publishers, prizes and Nielsen BookScan (a certain industry trade magazine may have been on the receiving end, too) to improve the visibility of illustrators.
Philip Pullman Author
With the launch of the second Book of Dust title and the long-awaited BBC/ HBO adaptation of His Dark Materials exhuming all memory of 2008’s turkey “The Golden Compass”, Pullman has had quite the autumn; year on year, his value through the TCM has zipped up 124%. As president of the Society of Authors, Pullman called upon the next UK government to “realise the treasure that the creative arts and industries represent, and to look after them with a full consciousness of the importance and value of those who work in this field” in its 2019 manifesto.
David Walliams Author
Walliams rarely has a bad year, but 2019 has been a fantastic one—and not just because he won a Nibbie. The Tony Ross-illustrated Fing soared straight to number one in February, with The World’s Worst Teachers breaking records in June. This was just the build-up to November, when a later-than-usual autumn release—the alarmingly topical The Beast of Buckingham Palace—saw Walliams obliterate his already sky-high launch week record, racking up two consecutive weeks of six-figure volumes. On top of that, his all-time BookScan sales surpassed £100m this year.
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Axel Scheffler Illustrator
Spotted on many an anti-Brexit march over 2019—the UK famously has yet to leave nearly three years on from Article 50, so he’s clearly doing something right—Scheffler marked 20 years of The Gruffalo with author Julia Donaldson this year. The bestselling picture book of all time and its spin-offs have brought in over £32m through the TCM in total. This autumn’s The Smeds and the Smoos, with its message of inclusivity, has already sold over 85,000 copies. The Snail and the Whale will be on TV screens this Christmas, with an adaptation of Zog and the Flying Doctors to follow in 2020.
Kit de Waal Author
It has been a particularly busy year for author and campaigner de Waal. With 17 other women, she co-founded Primadonna, a new literary festival with an emphasis on female writers. She also crowdfunded and edited Common People, an anthology of literature from established and new working-class writ- ers, wrote the launch title for Hachette Children’s new feminist YA list Bellatrix, and was a member of the panel select- ing the BBC’s “100 Novels That Shaped Our World”. Oh, and she was also named Person of the Year at the 2019 FutureBook Live conference.
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