Meet the author

George Caltsoudas.

Illustrator · United States

George Caltsoudas: the graphic, cinematic illustrator behind Alastair Chisholm's Reek, whose bold, high-contrast artwork gives short dystopian thrillers the visual charge to pull in reluctant 8-12 readers.

George Caltsoudas is an illustrator and designer who works in a graphic, high-impact style well suited to older, edgier children's fiction. He provides the cover art and interior illustrations for Alastair Chisholm's Reek, a taut climate dystopia published by Barrington Stoke in a dyslexia-friendly edition, in which a girl fights a tech billionaire who controls the last supply of clean air. His dynamic, atmospheric artwork gives the short, propulsive thriller real visual charge, drawing in reluctant and struggling readers alongside confident ones. Caltsoudas's design-led sensibility — bold shapes, strong contrast, a cinematic eye — makes him a natural fit for science fiction and suspense aimed at 8-12s, where the pictures need to move as fast as the plot.