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It annually awards the Kate Greenaway Medal, to an outstanding illustrator of a book for children and young people.
The winning illustrator receives a golden medal, along with £500 worth of books, which they donate to a library of their choice.
Since 2000, the winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal has also been awarded the £5000 Colin Mears Award.
Colin Mears, a Worthing based accountant and children’s book collector, left a bequest providing every Greenaway winner with a cash award as well as the coveted Medal.
The Kate Greenaway Medal was established in 1955, for distinguished illustration in a book for children. It is named after the popular nineteenth century artist known for her fine children’s illustrations and designs.
The 2010 Kate Greenway Medal, has been awarded to illustrator Freya Blackwood, for her 2009 book, ‘Harry & Hopper’.
Synopsis:
Freya lives with her daughter, in Orange, New South Wales, Australia, the same town where she grew up, although she was actually born in Edinburgh UK. They live in a great little 1940s house and Freya works illustrating stories in a studio in her backyard.
They live close to her grandmother, and parents, of whom her mother is a painter and jeweller, and her father is an architect. Her grandfather was a painter as well, so Freya and her brother grew up in a household interested in colours, shapes, textures and all things visual.
After graduating from the University of Technology in Sydney, with a degree in Visual Communications, she worked in the film industry as a production assistant, runner and effects technician.
In 2002 she started illustrating picture books. She loves creating characters, giving them emotions and their own small world to live in. She also enjoys the designing and problem solving involved in the creation of a picture book. Some of her books have been translated into other languages.
The text for “Harry & Hopper” was written by Australian author Margaret Wild, who is well known for telling stories for children, that confront sensitive topics.
Freya’s drawings are incredible, click here to view just a sample of them.
I have always wanted to paint and draw, but rather than having ‘Two Left Feet’, as the saying goes, I am sure that I have ‘Two Left Hands’, so I think that this will always remain an unfulfilled dream!!!
