Shirley Hughes, an award-winning British author of more than 50 children's books, and illustrator of some 200 more, with worldwide sales of more than 11 million, died February 25, the Guardian reported. "She had an exceptional talent for drawing children. Through her warm-hearted observation, particularly of pre-school children, she created a distinctive and affectionate visual image of childhood that has been instantly recognizable for more than 60 years.
In 1977, she published Dogger, one of her best-loved books and the first to bring her a mass readership. It won her first CILIP Kate Greenaway medal, and 30 years later Dogger was voted the "Greenaway of Greenaways" in a poll of the country's favorite picture books.
Hughes's ability to draw children was spotted by a children's books editor while she was still a student at the Ruskin School of Drawing, Oxford. For a time, she primarily illustrated other people's stories, but moved on to writing and illustrating her own works, beginning with Lucy and Tom's Day (1960) and including Alfie Gets in First (1981), the first of her Alfie series; Up and Up (1979); Chips and Jessie (1985); The Lion and the Unicorn (2000), Hero on a Bicycle (2012) and Whistling in the Dark (2016). In 2012, she published Dixie O'Day: In the Fast Lane!, the first in an illustrated series created with her daughter, Clara Vulliamy. Her last book, Dogger's Christmas, was published in 2020.
Her many honors include the Children's Rights Workshop Other award for Helpers (1975) and a second Kate Greenaway medal, for Ella's Big Chance (2003). She received the Eleanor Farjeon award for services to children's literature in 1984, and was the first winner of the BookTrust lifetime achievement award, in 2015. She was appointed OBE in 1999 and CBE in 2017.
Karen Lotz, president and publisher of Candlewick Press and Walker Books Group managing director, told the Bookseller: "Shirley has been a part of the Walker Books family since almost the very beginning.... She had an instinctive sense of what would appeal to young children, and highlighted the drama and excitement of their everyday lives in her warmhearted stories.... Shirley understood children's capacity to pore over and absorb the details in pictures, and she always gave them the very best. Her draughtsmanship was second to none.... Shirley was one of the most loved and admired writers and illustrators of all time, and she will be sorely missed by us all."
Francesca Dow, managing director of PRH Children's, said Hughes "was an exceptional and wonderfully unshowy picture-book creator: she created vivid unforgettable photos dramas out of the small and quotidian details of domestic life.... Shirley had a story for all these seminal moments in a child's life and her stories are timeless."
Andrea MacDonald, editorial director and Hughes's long-time editor, added: "Shirley's work was just like her: full of warmth and joy. Her eye and her drawing hand were so sharp: full of compassion but never sentimental; always interested in those pivotal dramas which happen in pre-schoolers' lives.... Shirley was an incredible artist, an innovator, an advocate, and also a wonderful and kind person."