WIA2024 Shortlist Showcase – Children’s Publishing
Bursting with joy from beginning to end. Dive into the world of these amazing shortlisted picture books.
Image Credit: Charlotte Durance Fishy Friday
This year’s Children’s Publishing Category is bursting with joyful illustrations that transport you to new worlds. We’ve been captivated by this years use of dynamic composition, vibrant colour and emotive characters.
We’ve loved seeing how the illustrators in this category have the ability to capture big topics such as friendship, empathy and independence. Illustration acts as a vital tool in teaching children big life lessons, whilst creating playful narratives that we can’t put down!
Take a look at this curated list of the WIA2024 Children’s Publishing Category spotlighting work from New Talent and Professional illustrators, as well as thoughts from the category judges. A big thanks to this year’s Children’s Publishing Sponsor’s Walker Books.
Children’s Publishing New Talent
Charlotte Durance – Fishy Friday
New Talent
This playful story explores the ritual of Chip Shop Friday’s but with a twist!
These Seemingly mischievous penguins are causing a stir in the village. However, this energetic story takes us on a journey to spot the hidden clues within the artwork.
Each page turn is bursting with colour, using a limited yet striking colour palette. Charlotte used a range of mediums including collaged shapes. Finally brought together using a Risograph technique to give a textured vintage feel.
The Risograph painterly quality give a nostalgic and cosy feeling tied up in our memories of Chip Shop Friday’s.
Charlotte Durance is an illustrator who lives in East Anglia in the UK
Click here to see the full project
Franziska Eberle – Wilderness
New Talent
Originally designed for Folktale week on Instagram this self-initiated project explores our connection to the natural world.
The story takes us on a journey with a strong and brave girl as the main character. Accompanied by a chicken they explore all the natural elements of the wilderness.
The hand-drawn coloured pencil create a warm comforting style that perfectly captures the natural elements within the story.
Franziska carried a sketchbook with her wherever she goes making the detailed spreads both immersive and imaginative.
Franziska Eberle is an illustrator based in Austria.
Children’s Publishing Professional
Emma Chinnery – My Friend Andy
Professional
Commissioned by Little Tiger Press, My Friend Andy explores themes of friendship, empathy and homelessness.
The heartwarming tale explores the bond between Andy and his dog, showcasing their life in the city. Without directly telling the audience Andy is homeless, the beautifully crafted narrative shows their life and the small acts of kindness Andy shares.
The illustrations perfectly capture the city’s setting with emotive use of light and dark. Created using water colour and pencil before being finalised with digital editing and colouring.
The illustrations have an expressive use of line adding to the emotive nature of the book.
Emma Chinnery is an illustrator based in the UK.
Click here to see the full project
Anuska Allepuz – Lila Sacher and the expedition to the North
Professional
This beautiful story takes us on a journey, to find a place of belonging.
Inspired by their own experience of travel and discovery the book captures how home can be found in many forms.
Our main character Lila was orphaned and lives with her inventor uncle as they travel the world together.
The monochrome illustrations use bold shape and texture to create rich spreads. Using crayons, ink and pen for a painterly quality.
Anuska Allepuz is an illustrator based in the UK.
Judges Highlights
Anna McGregor – Who’s Afraid of the Light?
Professional
This dynamic picture book explores the depths of the ocean. Commissioned by Scribble Kids Books, the Non- Fiction book fuses informative facts with dramatic illustrations.
The book perfectly captures the depths of the ocean by using tone and colour to illustrate a gradual decent into the ocean. The use of Illustrated typography provides visual interest on the otherwise stark black pages
Using neon Pantone inks to pop off the pages to creating an illuminating kaleidoscope of colour.
Anna McGregor is an illustrator based in Australia.
Click here to see the full project
We asked one of our Children’s Publishing Category judges for their thoughts…
The artist’s use of light and reflective qualities is stunning. Super-clever use of reversed-out typography will make this book a really eye-catching one, and the cleverness never gets too overpowering. It’s striking and appealing — and an fine example of using engaging characters and simplicity to convey complex information.
Strawberrie Donnelly –
Art Director for Picture Books and Pre-School publishing at Bloomsbury Children’s Books
New Talent
Showing the importance of individuality and loving who you are, this book features Blu the Blueberry. We follow them as they embark on a journey to find a way to become red only to discover its out differences that make us special.
The playful use of character design creates empathy and understanding whilst getting readers to root for Blu on their adventure. The limited palette also aids the narrative to create impactful storytelling
Amber Au is an illustrator from Hong Kong currently based in the UK.
Click here to see the full project
We asked one of our Children’s Publishing Category judges for their thoughts…
The youthful pencil lines and vivid red and blue watercolour blocks are striking and powerful, straightforward and direct in narration, possessing great visual expressiveness and storytelling ability. They stimulate children’s colour perception, greatly facilitating their understanding of the story, attracting them to read, and guiding them to establish self-awareness, self-confidence, and self-esteem, thereby promoting their character development.
Wang Lijun – Cartoon Art Committee of China Artists Association
Illustrator Interviews
Be sure to check out our artist interviews from this years WIA2024 Children’s Publishing Category!
We asked Children’s Publishing illustrator Imogen Joy why she was excited to be Shortlisted for her project ‘Elkie and Croc’:
The fact that Elkie and Croc are up there on the AOI website amongst such incredible talent, and that my characters are being seen by people I may never have imagined would see them, is wonderful!
We asked Children’s Publishing Illustrator Annette Saugestad what her favourite thing was about her Shortlisted Project ‘Karin and the dark’
I like that I have had time to develop a character-design and an overall visual style that felt interesting to work on, and that the visual narrative and style has its own voice in the book.
If you enjoyed reading this curated list, be sure to keep check out the rest of the WIA2024 Shortlist Showcase.
Explore The Shortlist Showcase
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