Ten top writer/illustrators

Edward Carey is a writer and illustrator who was born in North Walsham, Norfolk, England, during an April snowstorm. He currently lives in Austin, Texas. He is the author of the novels Observatory Mansions and Alva and Irva: the Twins Who Saved a City, which have been translated into thirteen different languages, and both of which he illustrated. His latest book is Heap House, book one of The Iremonger Trilogy.

One of Carey's top ten writer/illustrators, as told to the Guardian:

The Tales of Beatrix Potter

Potter was of course a dazzling illustrator. Her watercolours are extremely pretty but that doesn't mean there's no edge to her: see The Tale of Samuel Whiskers, those rats can terrify. Samuel a "dreadful 'normous big rat" and his scrawny wife Anna Maria roll Tom Kitten in pastry and it's marvellously unsettling, as are the dolls who are strange bit parts in a couple of the books, Lucinda and Jane Doll and the lanky policeman, their faces never changing expression. Almost everyone in Potter's books is hungry.

Read about another writer/illustrator on Carey's list.

The Tale of Samuel Whiskers (or Roly Poly Pudding) by Beatrix Potter made Alice-Azania Jarvis's reading list on rats.

--Marshal Zeringue