Michael ForemanOBE (born 21 March 1938) is a British author and illustrator, one of the best-known and most prolific creators of children's books.[1] He won the 1982 and 1989 Kate Greenaway Medals for British children's book illustration and he was a runner-up five times.[2]
For his contribution as a children's illustrator he was UK nominee in 1988 and again in 2010 for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest recognition available to creators of children's books.[3][4]
Life
Foreman was born and grew up in Pakefield, near Lowestoft, Suffolk, where his mother kept the village shop.[5][6] His father died a month before he was born.[7] When he was three, the family home was hit by a German bomb, but he survived along with his mother and two older brothers.[8] He studied at Lowestoft School of Art, and later in London at the Royal College of Art,[9] where he won a scholarship to the United States.
Foreman learned to respond instantly to text as an art student.[11] Having drawn for the newspapers and for the police, drawing female suspects when Identikit only catered for men, he gained valuable drawing experience. A travel scholarship took him all around the world, drawing landscapes, architecture and wildlife. Although many of his books feature luminous watercolours, it is the drawing that he sees as vital: "It's all in the drawing and illustration. It's a question of creating another world, believable in its own right. I think I was very lucky to have started art school so young when they actually taught Art. It was a rigorous training – not just painting and drawing from life – but hours of anatomy and perspective. ... it really taught you to understand what you were looking at."[11] His aim in illustration is to make the worlds created believable, real: "I keep trying to make things more real, not in a literal photographic sense, but in an emotional sense, telling a story by capturing the essence of the situation, giving it some meaning."[11]
1961 The General (illustrator) Routledge & Kegan Paul, by Jane Charters
1961 The King Who Lived on Jelly (illustrator) Routledge & Kegan Paul
1962 Poems by Children 1950–61 (illustrator) Routledge & Kegan Paul
1966 Huit Enfants et un Bebe (illustrator) Abelard-Schuman
1966 Making Music (illustrator) Longman
1966 The Bad Food Guide (illustrator) Routledge & Kegan Paul
1967 I'm for You, and You're for Me (illustrator) Abelard-Schuman
1967 The Perfect Present (author/illustrator) Hamish Hamilton
1967 The Two Giants (author/illustrator) Brockhampton Press
1968 Let's Fight! and Other Russian Fables (illustrator) Pantheon (U.S.)
1968 The Great Sleigh Robbery (author/illustrator) Hamish Hamilton
1969 Essex Poems, 1963–67 (illustrator) Routledge & Kegan Paul
1970s
1970 Adam's Balm (illustrator) Bowmar (U.S.)
1970 Horatio (author/illustrator) Hamish Hamilton
1970 The Birthday Unicorn (illustrator) Gollancz
1971 James and the Giant Peach (an adaptation) (illustrator) Penguin
1971 Moose (author/illustrator) Hamish Hamilton
1971 The Living Arts of Nigeria (illustrator) Studio Vista
1972 Dinosaurs and all that rubbish (author/illustrator) Hamish Hamilton, adapted into an online series and musical theatre production by Roustabout Theatre in 2021
1973 Alexander in the Land of Mog (illustrator) Brockhampton Press
1973 Mr Noah and the Second Flood (illustrator) Gollancz
1973 The Living Treasures of Japan (illustrator) Wildwood House
1973 The Pushcart War (illustrator) Hamish Hamilton
1974 War and Peas (writer and illustrator) Hamish Hamilton
1975 Private Zoo (illustrator) Collinsn
1975 Rainbow Rider (illustrator) Collins
1976 Hans Andersen: His Classic Fairy Tales (illustrator) Gollancz
1976 Monkey and the Three Wizards (illustrator) Collins
1976 The Stone Book (illustrator) Collins
1977 Granny Reardun (illustrator) Collins
1977 Panda's Puzzle (author/illustrator) Hamish Hamilton
1981 Panda and the Old Lion (author/illustrator) Hamish Hamilton
1981 The Nightingale and the Rose (illustrator) Kaye & Ward
1981 Trick a Tracker (author/illustrator) Gollancz
1982 Land of Dreams (author/illustrator) Andersen Press
1982 Long Neck and Thunder Foot (illustrator) Viking Kestrel, by Helen Piers —joint winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal for British children's book illustration[13]
1982 Sleeping Beauty and other favourite fairy tales (illustrator) Gollancz, selected and translated from Perrault and Le Prince de Beaumont by Angela Carter —joint winner of the Greenaway Medal[14] and winner of the Kurt Maschler Award for integration of writing and illustration in a British children's book[15]
1982 The Crab That Played with the Sea (illustrator) Macmillan
1982 The Magic Mouse and the Millionaire (illustrator) Hamish Hamilton
1983 A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas (illustrator) Gollancz
1983 Poems for 7-Year-Olds and Under (illustrator) Viking Kestrel
1983 The Brontosaurus Birthday Cake (illustrator) Methuen
1987 du Maurier's Classics of the Macabre (illustrator) Gollancz
1987 Fun (illustrator) Gollancz
1987 Adventures of Charlie and Mr Willy Wonka (illustrator) Unwin Hyman
1987 The Jungle Book (illustrator) Puffin
1988 Edmond Went Far Away (illustrator) Walker Macmillan
1988 The Angel and the Wild Animal (author/illustrator) Andersen Press
1988 The Curse of the Vampire's Socks (illustrator) Pavilion
1988 The Magic Ointment (illustrator) Macmillan
1988 The Night Before Christmas (illustrator) Viking
1988 Peter Pan and Wendy (illustrator) Pavilion
1988 Worms Wiggle (author/illustrator) Carnival
1989 Land of the Long White Cloud (illustrator) Pavilion
1989 Once Upon a Planet (illustrator) Puffin
1989 The Sand Horse (illustrator) Andersen Press
1989 War Boy: a country childhood (author/illustrator) Pavilion —memoir, winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal,[16] —also entitled War Boy: a wartime childhood
1990s
1990 Michael Foreman (author/illustrator) Beetles
1990 Michael Foreman's Mother Goose (illustrator) Walker
1990 Michael Foreman's World of Fairy Tales (illustrator) Pavilion
1990 One World (author/illustrator) Andersen Press
1990 The Brothers Grimm: Popular Folk Tales (illustrator) Gollancz
^ abcdeToday there are usually eight books on the Greenaway shortlist. According to CCSU, some runners-up through 2002 were Commended (from 1959) or Highly Commended (from 1974). There were 99 commendations of both kinds in 44 years including three each for 1978, 1980, and 1983; two each for 1985 and 1993. There were 31 high commendations in 29 years including Foreman alone in 1980.
• No one has won three Greenaway Medals. Among the fourteen illustrators with two Medals, Foreman is one of seven with at least one highly commended runner up (1974–2002), led by Helen Oxenbury with four. He is their leader with five commendations of both kinds.
