Katty Maurey, Daphne Schenderling, Abi Bi, Becky Colvin and Helen Brady are rising stars in children’s illustration – but cute, happy and fluffy isn’t always on the agenda.
As much as their parents may want to wrap them in cotton wool, children love a little peril. It’s part and parcel of exploring the world, growing up, and learning to deal with the difficult things in life.
At the moment, many clients commissioning children’s illustration are looking for artists who can bring a little spookiness to their work. Naïve drawing styles, cute characters and comfortable worlds will always be part of the category, but kids know when they’re being pandered to, and mystery, atmosphere, and just the right amount of fear are what children’s publishers often look for.
The artists we’ve brought together here are all emerging talents whose work is hitting the mark. They know exactly how to manage the unnerving elements of the material without being too soft and – of course – without terrorising young minds.
Katty Maurey
“Personally, I love all things strange and unnerving! There are so many fun ways to approach spooky subjects,” says France-based illustrator Katty Maurey.
Co-created with author Kyo Maclear, her book There’s a Ghost in the Garden oozes with atmosphere and a sense of adventure, tinged with a worry or two. “Here, I decided I would explore wonder,” says Katty, “I wanted to depict the feeling of open anticipation as the mind searches. I wanted the spaces where the story takes place to feel liminal yet luminous and safe enough for a young, inquisitive mind to ponder unanswerable questions. There are many empty areas in this garden, places for a creature to have passed through or nest for a while before moving on. I wanted it to feel like life had happened here, but it is now gone, leaving its place for something else, perhaps unseen.”
Her sublime imagery is light rather than dark, yet still somehow haunting. It was created using gouache and led There’s a Ghost in the Garden to be chosen as one of the 10 Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2024 by the New York Times and New York Public Library.
Perhaps something unseen lurks in Katty Maurey’s garden?
Daphne Schenderling
Daphne Schenderling is a children’s illustrator who has just graduated from the St Joost School of Art and Design in the Netherlands. For her final year project, she used her character design and illustration skills to create Woodland Worries, a 2D animation about a young witch making a potion.
The film is about the fear of going outside, but it’s how Daphne manages it through the storytelling and visuals that make it so charming. Normally, the witch is the scary character in a fairytale, but here, she won’t leave her home to find the final ingredient for her spell. “To hold the viewer’s attention and keep the story light-hearted, I wanted to include some fun parts in my animation. The dynamic between the anxious little witch and the confident firefly made it easy for me to do so,” says Daphne.
“Fear is a theme that’s a big part of my life, and a lot of other people’s too,” she continues. “What I like about stories for children is the fun you can have with such themes. I enjoy making fun and magical animations while including a subtle message.”
Daphne Schenderling’s little witch is daunted by the forest.
Helen Brady
Signed by the agency IllustrationX this summer, Helen Brady is a children’s illustrator based near London who loves history, humour, magic, and… yes… a touch of spookiness. One of her self-initiated projects that catches the eye tells the tale of Claude le Clair, an artist who places a curse on whomever stole his painting before he dies. Then, he returns from the dead to haunt the thief.
An original story but written in the style of an old folktale, Helen illustrated it by hand with ink and coloured pencils in sepia tones, using strong light sources and shadows to emphasise the atmosphere.
“Being a teeny bit creeped out is always quite fun! I think children feel the same; their whole world is figuring out where boundaries lie, says Helen. “In this story, the thief meets his comeuppance by being cursed and trapped in the painting he had stolen. Justice! Children know they’re not going to actually be trapped in a painting, but they can imagine how that would feel. Even so, my story is definitely aimed at older children.”
Helen Brady ensures the villain is in for a surprise.
Abi Bi
With its enormous yellow eyes and challengingly impassive stare, the feline on the cover certainly has an unnerving countenance. However, when you open Abi Bi’s book Where’s Katie’s Cat? the artwork inside veers towards exploration over creepiness. But there are still those eyes…
“The inspiration for this story came from my childhood adventures in nature. I often moved houses and lived far from my friends, so I would explore fields, ponds, and forests on my own, always accompanied by a mischievous black-and-white cat,” says the illustrator, who is originally from China but now based in Cambridge.
“The final illustrations were created using hand-drawn collages. I incorporated a variety of materials, including acrylics, gouache, coloured pencils, oil pastels, ink and various mediums. I also collected old newspapers and magazines for collage elements. While this process was very time-consuming, often taking over a week to complete a spread, experimenting with these materials brought me immense joy and added unique details to the story,” she says.
The search for the cat takes place across a mushroom city, a leafy forest, a bird’s nest maze, and an underground world. In her other work, Abi explores even further, making pop-up dioramas, books with foldouts, and horizontal spines. This year, she was awarded the Macmillan Prize for Illustration for her children’s book It’s Swing Time.
Abi Bi’s cat does what cats do: whatever they want.
Becky Colvin
When she created her haunted train story The Scream Engine, Becky Colvin indulged her love of films like Coraline and Howl’s Moving Castle, and books such as A Monster Calls and The Arrival. Each has a bit of a dark vein running through it. But Becky also wanted to test out her landscape painting skills and created her book using gouache, watercolour, pencils, pastels and some digital drawings.
For her, artists shouldn’t underestimate children’s love for all things spooky. “I think children can handle a lot more than what they’re given credit for. There is a fascination with spooky things; it can be scary but also exciting! Being scared is a big feeling that you have to learn to navigate as a child, but it is nothing that introducing a loveable character can’t help them through. The Wilderness and The Cafe at the Edge of the Woods are brilliant examples of this.
At the moment, she’s working on her first book with Macmillan Children’s Books after winning the Macmillan Prize for Illustration in 2023. It won’t be as spooky as The Scream Engine, but there will be a dash of mystery and a sprinkling of peril, promises Becky.
