Swapna Haddow trained as a doctor, but after discovering she didn't like blood, decided on a career change and wrote her first book Dave Pigeon: How to Deal With Bad Cats and Keep (most of) Your Feathers, which won the Greenhouse Funny Prize, the North Somerset Teachers' Book Award, Read Aloud category 2016, and the Fantastic Book Awards 2018 and selected as part of the Tom Fletcher Book Club 2, in association with WHSmith.
Dave Pigeon was also shortlisted for the Sainsbury's Children's Book Awards 2016. Swapna now lives in New Zealand with her husband, their son and their dog. You can usually find Swapna writing, reading or eating Jaffa Cakes. Sometimes you might find her doing all three at the same time. Dapo Adeola is an illustrator, author and character designer who rocketed into the picture book world with his greatly acclaimed illustrator debut, Look Up!, written by Nathan Bryon and published by Puffin in 2019, which won the Waterstones Children's Book Prize in 2020.
Dapo illustrated My Dad is a Grizzly Bear and My Mum Is a Lioness written by award-winning author Swapna Haddow (both published by Macmillan Children's Books), and collaborated with Malorie Blackman on their picture book We're Going to Find the Monster. Dapo is the author of Hey You!: An Empowering Celebration of Growing Up Black, featuring 18 talented Black British illustrators. He also curated Joyful, Joyful: Stories Celebrating Black Voices, an illustrated anthology bringing together 40 Black artists and writers from all over the world in a celebration of Black joy.
Born in Britain and of Nigerian heritage, Dapo's work tends to revolve around creating characters and imagery that challenge gender norms and equality politics in a fun and upbeat manner. An avid believer in the importance of equal representation in the creative arts, Dapo runs illustration and character design based workshops with children and adults to help highlight the possibilities of a career in illustration to inner city people of various ethnicities.
Dapo lives in London.
Dave Pigeon was also shortlisted for the Sainsbury's Children's Book Awards 2016. Swapna now lives in New Zealand with her husband, their son and their dog. You can usually find Swapna writing, reading or eating Jaffa Cakes. Sometimes you might find her doing all three at the same time. Dapo Adeola is an illustrator, author and character designer who rocketed into the picture book world with his greatly acclaimed illustrator debut, Look Up!, written by Nathan Bryon and published by Puffin in 2019, which won the Waterstones Children's Book Prize in 2020.
Dapo illustrated My Dad is a Grizzly Bear and My Mum Is a Lioness written by award-winning author Swapna Haddow (both published by Macmillan Children's Books), and collaborated with Malorie Blackman on their picture book We're Going to Find the Monster. Dapo is the author of Hey You!: An Empowering Celebration of Growing Up Black, featuring 18 talented Black British illustrators. He also curated Joyful, Joyful: Stories Celebrating Black Voices, an illustrated anthology bringing together 40 Black artists and writers from all over the world in a celebration of Black joy.
Born in Britain and of Nigerian heritage, Dapo's work tends to revolve around creating characters and imagery that challenge gender norms and equality politics in a fun and upbeat manner. An avid believer in the importance of equal representation in the creative arts, Dapo runs illustration and character design based workshops with children and adults to help highlight the possibilities of a career in illustration to inner city people of various ethnicities.
Dapo lives in London.
