Barbara Firth

The multi award-winning illustrator of the classic Little Bear series.

After her schooldays were over Barbara studied fashion and pattern cutting at the London College of Fashion. She then worked on Vogue Magazines, producing step-by-step illustrations of knitting, crochet and dressmaking. However, it was years later as a freelance illustrator and working with Walker Books that Barbara was able to illustrate in her favourite field - natural history - and has gone on to illustrate many award-winning books.

Barbara Firth considers herself very lucky in her job; she has always from a very young age had a strong interest in natural history and loves to draw plants and animals. So was delighted to have the opportunity to draw bears for the book can't you sleep little bear. Firth spent a lot of time in zoo's studying bears and the way they live and move. She decided bears had very small, mean looking eyes and that she had to adapt them in her illustrations to make them less scary for smaller children.

"I have always been biased toward illustrating natural history, so it was a joy to be able to draw pages and pages of bears," Barbara Firth says of her collaboration with Martin Waddell on Can't You Sleep, Little Bear?, the first of their classic Big and Little Bear series.

Barbara Firth won the Kate Greenaway Medal and Smarties Book Prize for Can’t You Sleep, Little Bear? The Little Bear series has sold over seven million copies worldwide. She now lives in Harrow, England.

Barbara's style is quite unique and she spends lots of time observing the things she draws in real life and making sketching before she begins her illustrations. her books are very recognizable as her art style is very much her own with it's subtle tones and and natural looking colours to fit in with her love of the world around her and her interest in natural history.