Mick Inkpen was born in Romford in 1952 and has been making picture books since the mid-1970s, first in partnership with the designer Nick Butterworth and then, from 1991, on his own terms with a small cream-coloured dog called Kipper.
Kipper is the gentlest of picture-book heroes. Very little happens to him, which is exactly the appeal: a lost teddy, a snowy morning, a birthday that goes slightly wrong, all handled in a handful of soft watercolour scenes and a few dozen unhurried words. Wibbly Pig, his second great creation, works the same quiet magic for even younger listeners.
The awards followed: the Children’s Book Award for Threadbear, British Book Awards for Lullabyhullabaloo and Penguin Small, and a Children’s BAFTA in 1998 for the animated Kipper series. Few illustrators have done more to make a child’s first books feel like a safe place. He draws for the child on the rug, never for the adult reading over their shoulder.
57 minutes
