1. Chris Riddell was born on 13 April 1962 and is a South African-born English illustrator and occasional writer of children's books and a political cartoonist for the Observer.
16 Facts About Chris Riddell
1. 2.
Chris Riddell was born in 1962 in Cape Town, South Africa, where his father was a "liberal Anglican vicar" and was opposed to the system of apartheid.
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The family returned to England when Chris was one year old, where he spent the rest of his childhood with his sister and three brothers, who now live in South Africa, Brighton, and Egypt.
4.
Chris Riddell displayed artistic talent from an early age and was encouraged in this by his mother.
5.
Chris Riddell worked as an illustrator at The Economist in the 1980s, and at the Observer starting in 1995.
6.
Daughter Katy Chris Riddell is a children's book illustrator, including of Pongwiffy by Kaye Umansky.
7.
Some of Chris Riddell's most celebrated work are The Edge Chronicles, a children's book series co-written with Paul Stewart and illustrated by Chris Riddell.
8.
Chris Riddell won the 2001 Medal for illustrating Pirate Diary: The Journal of Jake Carpenter by Platt.
9.
Three years later, Chris Riddell won the Greenaway again, this time for his work on Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver", retold by Martin Jenkins from the 1726 classic Gulliver's Travels.
10.
Chris Riddell has given us 144 pages of fantastic, faultless illustrations, which constantly extend the power of the text.
11.
Stewart and Chris Riddell collaborated on Muddle Earth and the Barnaby Grimes series.
12.
Beside writing and illustrating books, Riddell is an acclaimed political cartoonist for the Observer newspaper in London, where his caricatures of politicians from John Major to Gordon Brown, Bill Clinton to George W Bush, have earned him a reputation as a fine draughtsman and acute commentator on the political scene.
13.
Chris Riddell is the cover artist for the Literary Review magazine formerly edited by Auberon Waugh, a role he took over from the late Willie Rushton.
14.
In November 2017, Riddell publicly accused department store chain John Lewis of plagiarizing elements of his 1986 picture book Mr Underbed for their Christmas advert "Moz the Monster".
15.
Chris Riddell has collaborated with Paul Stewart on dozens of books, including the Edge Chronicles series.
16.
Chris Riddell has illustrated several books written by each of five other authors.