Ed Vere

Ed Vere is an award-winning and New York Times bestselling writer & illustrator of picture books.

His latest book ‘The Artist’ is a joyful story about a young artist… for all young artists.  Aiming to give creative confidence to young artists everywhere, celebrating what it means to create. Knowing that mistakes are a part of making art and that the world is a joyful, beautiful place, full of wonders. This story came, in part, from co-creating the ‘Power of Pictures’ visual literacy programme with Charlotte Hacking and CLPE. ‘The Artist’ was given a starred Kirkus review in the U.S. and has been chosen as one of Amazon.com’s best children’s books of 2023.

‘How to be a Lion’ was the winner of Oscar’s Book Prize 2019, selected by the children’s laureate Lauren Child and a jury including Sarah Brown. It was given a Kirkus starred review and selected as one of Amazon.com’s best books of 2018 as well as being one of NPR best books of 2018 and one of New York Public Library best books of 2018. It is an EB White Read Aloud Honor Book.

‘Max the Brave’ is a New York Times bestseller and was named one of The Sunday Times’s ‘100 Modern Children’s Classics’. It is published in over 15 languages and was followed by ‘Max at Night’ and ‘Max & Bird’. Ed is currently working with Dutch production studio ‘Submarine’ to create a pre-school animated series.

‘The Getaway’, his first book, won the Highland Children’s Book Award in 2007. The following year, ‘Banana’ was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway prize. In 2009 ‘Mr Big’ was Booktrust’s official Booktime book, reaching 750,000 British schoolchildren – the largest single print run for a picture book! In the same year, pop-up book ‘Chick’ won the Booktrust Early Years Award for best baby book.

‘Bedtime for Monsters’ was shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize in 2011 and the next year Ed had the honour of being one of the four Roald Dahl Funny Prize judges, along with Michael Rosen.

Ed also works on many projects related to his books . . . from speaking at literary festivals from Rio to Mexico to Kerala, to curating museum experiences in the UK, to live drawing onstage at The Barbican Centre alongside the Britten Sinfonia, and at The Wigmore Hall with the Neil Cowley Trio. Ed is also working with the Born Free Foundation as their artist in residence, recently travelling to Kenya to document their field work. The book that results will be ‘A painted and written travelogue, a journey of discovery, it hopes to engender a love of nature in a world increasingly disconnected from it. The book will discuss issues around freedom, conservation and what we can do to create a world in which wildlife thrives, rather than perishes.’

Ed is a patron of The Centre for Literacy in Primary education. He worked with CLPE to co-create the award winning Power of Pictures programme which encourages visual literacy in primary school education and has received major funding from the Arts Council.

Ed lives and works in Lewes, East Sussex.