About
Martin Waddell

Martin Waddell is a true titan of the literary world who has sold over 18 million books. Over the past six decades he has written books for readers of all ages but it is his writing for children for which he is best known and celebrated, winning numerous literary awards, including the illustrious Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 2004 for his enduring international contribution to children’s literature.

Grandparents, parents and children alike know and love Waddell’s most famous works:

• Owl Babies
• Can’t You Sleep, Little Bear?
• Farmer Duck
• The Big, Big Sea

The sheer scale of the canon is breathtaking. Martin Waddell has written 272 books. Throughout his long career he has collaborated creatively with world class illustrators including:

• Patrick Benson (Owl Babies)
• Helen Oxenbury (Farmer Duck)
• Jill Barton (Pig in the Pond)
• Penny Dale (Once There Were Giants)
• Barbara Firth (Can’t You Sleep, Little Bear?)

In 1989, Waddell and Firth won the Kurt Maschler Award, AKA ‘The Emil’, for The Park in the Dark—awarded annually to recognize one British “work of imagination for children, in which text and illustration are integrated so that each enhances and balances the other.” An invitation to appear at the White House Easter Egg Roll in 2002, an honour usually reserved for American writers, further cemented Waddell’s international reputation.