One of six brothers, I was born in Middlesbrough, where my father worked in the steelworks and my mother was a teacher. My father was injured at work and decided to go to art college, so when I was five we moved to London. At first, we lived in a tent in Epping Forest before finding a council flat in Hackney.

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I left school at sixteen and worked at a design company in Clerkenwell, where I had the chance to do my first commercial illustration work. I went on to study illustration at St Martins and The Royal College of Art.

Illustrating a picture book by Ted Hughes shortly after graduating, got me started writing picture book stories, and my first book as author and illustrator, Halibut Jackson, was published in 2003. Since then, I have written and illustrated eighteen books, translated into twelve languages.

 

More recently, I have been developing a series of illustrated fantasy novels (with guidance and input from my brilliant agent, James Catchpole) and working on a graphic novel about my misadventures growing up.

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I live with my wife and daughter in east London.