Skip to main content
Regional secretary with the National Education Union
Quentin Blake – doyen of children’s book illustrators
(L to R) Mr Magnolia by Quentin Blake and The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear

Quentin Blake: Illustrating Verse
Kirkby Gallery / House of Illustration

 

 

QUENTIN BLAKE is one of Britain’s best-loved illustrators of children’s books. His whimsical style, anarchist characters and their crazy antics have enraptured generations of children.

That said, my own daughter told me that as a child she found his illustrations “too messy, slapdash, the scribbly-looseness of it all turned me off, and all his characters seemed to have big noses, which I didn’t like.”

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
earthquakes
Books / 18 July 2025
18 July 2025

JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America

metamorf
Exhibition review / 16 July 2025
16 July 2025

JOHN GREEN is stirred by an ambitious art project that explores solidarity and the shared memory of occupation

PARRIQUE
Books / 20 June 2025
20 June 2025

JOHN GREEN applauds an excellent and accessible demonstration that the capitalist economy is the biggest threat to our existence

abundance
Books / 12 June 2025
12 June 2025

JOHN GREEN isn’t helped by the utopian fantasy of a New York Times bestseller that ignores class struggle and blames the so-called ’progressives’

Similar stories
gray
Exhibition review / 8 July 2025
8 July 2025

BLANE SAVAGE recommends the display of nine previously unseen works by the Glaswegian artist, novelist and playwright

IMPROVE THE BLANK PAGE: Installation by Nicanor Parra at the
Book Review / 3 January 2025
3 January 2025
ALISTAIR FINDLAY welcomes a collection of essays from one of the cultural left’s most respected speakers and activists
Poetry review / 19 November 2024
19 November 2024
JAN WOOLF relishes a book of poetry that deploys the energy of political struggle, rooted in post-war working class history and culture
(L) Ken Kiff, The Poet (Mayakovsky), 1977; (R) Open book and
Exhibition review / 8 October 2024
8 October 2024
JAN WOOLF revels in a painter of the poetic, whose freshness emulates that of the very young