Chris Butterworth is the author of Sea Horse: The Shyest Fish in the Sea, illustrated by John Lawrence, The Things That I LOVE about TREES, illustrated by Charlotte Voake, See What a Seal Can Do, illustrated by Kate Nelms, and How Did That Get in My Lunchbox? The Story of Food, illustrated Lucia Gaggiotti. Chris Butterworth lives in Cornwall, England.

John Lawrence says, "Sea horses are really exciting to draw, and I have tried to imagine how it must be to live under the water like them." John Lawrence is both the author and illustrator of This Little Chick, named a New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Children's Book of the year.

When I was little I lived in two wild bits of England: near the wild Cornish cliffs of Land’s End and in the middle of Devonshire moorland on Dartmoor. I spent hours poking around in rock pools and lifting up stones to see what was underneath, because I was always nosy. (Everyone in the world is born curious, and if you’re lucky, you stay that way forever.) As an adult, I lived in London for a long time, but now I’m back in the far west of England, near Land’s End — and I’m still nosy.


That’s why I write information books — there’s always something else to find out about, and writing about a thing is the best way to find out about it. I started writing information books when my own children were little. I couldn’t find the sort of book I wanted them to read, so I wrote one of my own. I’ve written about all sorts of things: from influenza to Antarctic exploration, from giant squid to the ancient Egyptians. What am I most interested in? That’s easy—it’s whatever I’m writing about at the moment.

Three Things You Might Not Know About Me:

1. My favorite place to be is lying tucked up warm in bed, listening to the rain and the wind outside lashing against the windows.

2. I like food—my daughter’s first word was “more,” and my son’s first word was “cake,” so I think they must take after me!

3. I can speak cat—at least, I can to my own two cats.