Anita Jeram

Original picture book artwork by Anita Jeram is available for purchase from Children's Book Illustration together with the original artwork from her popular Two Bad Mice cards.

Anita Jeram was born and brought up in Portsmouth, England. After school she had a series of jobs including kennel maid, packer in a talcumn powder factory, and sorter in a crisp factory, picking out the bad crisps! In 1986 she married her husband Andy and moved to Manchester.

She enroled on a foundation course in visual studies at Manchester Polytechnic, followed by a degree course in illustration. The end of year show was in June 1990. She moved across the pond to Northern Ireland in July and had a baby boy in August. (Phew!) Her tutor David Hughes, who is also an illustrator, took some of her work to Walker Books and her first book, Bill's Belly Button, was published a year after she graduated. Her second book, It Was Jake!, was included on the National Curriculum SAT reading list.

Since then she has been busy making numerous picture books with publisher Walker Books including her best known book, Guess How Much I Love You, which rapidly became established around the world as a new picture-book classic. Over a million copies were printed in the first year of publication and it was one of the best-selling children's books in both Britain and America. Guess How Much I Love You was shortlisted for the 1994 Kurt Maschler Award and for the Illustrated Children's Books category of the 1994 British Book Awards. Anita also makes greetings cards for Two Bad Mice and the illustrations from these have proved extremely popular.

Anita lives in a renovated farmhouse right near the sea with her husband and three children, together with a menagerie of animals - that her daughter keeps adding to!

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