Meet the author

Chris Turnham.

Illustrator · United States

Chris Turnham is an animation-trained illustrator whose warm, mid-century woodland scenes give picture books such as The Wish Tree their cosy, glowing, slow-look charm.

Chris Turnham is an American illustrator based in Los Angeles, originally from the Pacific Northwest. Before turning to books he built a career as a visual-development artist in animation, contributing to feature films including Coraline and ParaNorman for the studio LAIKA, as well as work for Sony Pictures Animation and DreamWorks. His picture-book work carries that same eye, a mid-century graphic sensibility of clean shapes, glowing light and layered woodland scenes that owe a debt to illustrators such as M. Sasek and the Provensens. In children's publishing he is best known for The Wish Tree, written by Kyo Maclear, a snow-dusted read-aloud about small kindnesses. His nature and landscape work is warm, retro and quietly detailed, a good fit for cosy, seasonal picture books that reward a slow look.