Meet the author

Helen Oxenbury.

Illustrator · United Kingdom · b. 1938

Helen Oxenbury: canonical British illustrator behind We're Going on a Bear Hunt (with Michael Rosen) and Alice in Wonderland — a gentle, painterly visual presence in UK childhoods for fifty years.

Helen Oxenbury is a British illustrator born in 1938, one of the defining picture-book illustrators of the late twentieth century. Best known as the long-time visual partner of Michael Rosen on We're Going on a Bear Hunt (1989), one of the most-read-aloud picture books in English-language history, plus her own author-illustrated baby and toddler books (the Tom and Pippo series, Big Baby Book, Tickle Tickle), her illustrations for John Burningham (her husband), and her Alice in Wonderland (2003 Greenaway). Multiple Kate Greenaway winner. Her style is gentle, painterly, characterful, closer to British classic illustration than to contemporary cartoon picture books. A genuine canonical-classic picture-book illustrator.