British author and illustrator Michael Foreman was born a month before his father died, on 21 March 1938. He grew up in Pakefield, near Lowestoft, Suffolk, where his mother kept the village shop. He studied at Lowestoft School of Art, and later in London at the Royal College of Art, where he won a scholarship to the United States.

• He married his first wife, author Jane Charters, in 1959.
• Their son Mark was born the following year.
• A travel scholarship took him all around the world, drawing landscapes, architecture and wildlife.

Foreman learned to draw for the newspapers and for the police, drawing female suspects when Identikit only catered for men.

Foreman won the 1982 and 1989 Kate Greenaway Medals for British children’s book illustration.

• For his contribution as a children’s illustrator, in 1988, he was a U.K. nominee and again in 2010 for the biennial, International Hans Christian Andersen Award; the highest recognition available to creators of children’s books.

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