Anita Jeram

Anita grew up in Portsmouth (England). She didn’t have many picture books when she was little, but really loved the ones she did have. Most of all she liked drawing, animals, and drawing animals. She drew in books and on comics, and on any odd scraps of paper she could find.

 

In 1986 Anita married Andy Jeram, and they moved to Manchester so that Andy could study fossils at the University there. At this time Anita decided to go back to Art College. She did a year’s foundation course in visual studies at Manchester Polytechnic that was great fun and enabled her to be accepted onto a degree course in Illustration.

 

One of Anita’s tutors, David Hughes, introduced her to Walker books, and even before she graduated they had signed her up for her first picture book. From then on Walker Books and their American subsidiary, Candlewick Press, have kept Anita busy working on picture books.

 

Anita has also established a reputation as a greeting cards artist with the range she has produced for Two Bad Mice Publishers, and she is now working on a variety of new projects, including ceramic designs and figurines.

 

Anita is best known as an illustrator of children’s storybooks, particularly the modern classic ‘Guess How Much I Love You’ written by Sam McBratney.

 

In 1990 Anita and Andy moved to Northern Ireland, where they now live by the sea with their three children and a mixed menagerie of animals.