Photo by Olivia Domingos
I am an author-illustrator and educator with a passion for activism! My latest children’s book PROTEST! How People Have Come Together to Change the World, co-authored with my sister Alice Haworth-Booth and published by Pavilion Children’s in June 2021, tells the story of people power from Ancient Egypt to the present day. Since publication, Alice and I have enjoyed working with schools across the UK to introduce children to the history of protest through creative workshops.
I explore the themes of power and rebellion in my picturebooks The Last Tree and The King Who Banned the Dark, which was a Guardian Children’s Book of the Month, a Sunday Times Book to Watch Out For, and nominated for nine awards including the Kate Greenaway, Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and Little Rebels Award.
I am currently working on a prose novel about contemporary (non)motherhood and an Arts Council England funded graphic novel about climate anxiety. My comics have appeared in print in publications including the Observer, Vogue and Myriad Edition’s groundbreaking new study of over 250 years of Women Cartoon and Comic Artists in Britain, The Inking Woman, and I have received creative commissions from the Wellcome Trust and the Crafts Council.
When I’m not writing, drawing or hanging out with dogs and horses I teach online courses on comics, graphic novels, word-image relationship, dystopia, utopia and the birth and death of worlds, at the Royal Drawing School in London. I also teach online at Venster Academy in the Netherlands and host their series of interviews with picturebook creators, with my friend Rachel Stubbs. We have been lucky enough to speak to many of our heroes, including Pam Smy, Sydney Smith and Lizzy Stewart.
I also mentor up and coming picturebook authors and illustrators; for more info please contact me.
I have an MA with Distinction in Children’s Book Illustration from Cambridge School of Art (Anglia Ruskin) and a BA in English Literature from Cambridge University. My agent is Ed Wilson at Johnson & Alcock.
To see more of my work in progress please follow me on instagram @emilyhaworthbooth
Awards and honours:
– Winner, Mslexia First Novel Competition, for MARE, 2024
– Shortlisted, Bridport Poetry Prize, 2023
– Hawthornden Fellow, 2021
– Represented the UK at the Bratislava Biennale of Illustration, 2021
– Arts Council England Project Grant recipient, 2020
– Shortlisted, Spark Children’s Book Award, Picturebook Category, 2020
– Shortlisted, Lewisham Primary Award, Picturebook Category, 2020
– Shortlisted, Teach Primary Book Awards (Reception), 2020
– Nominated, Kate Greenaway Medal 2021
– Shortlisted, Coventry Inspiration Book Awards 2020
– Longlisted, Kate Greenaway Medal 2020
– Finalist, Golden Pinwheel Young Illustrators Competition 2019
– Shortlisted, Hampshire Illustrated Book Award 2019
– Shortlisted, Independent Bookshop Week Book Award 2019
– Shortlisted, Klaus Flugge Award 2019
– Shortlisted, Little Rebels Award for radical children’s fiction 2019
– Shortlisted, Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2019
– Runner-up, Read it again! Picture Book Award 2019
– Shortlisted, Laydeez Do Comics Prize 2018
– Winner, Picture This! illustration award 2017
– Shortlisted, Macmillan Prize for Illustration 2017
– Winner, Jonathan Cape/Observer/Comica Graphic Short Story Prize 2013
– Runner-up, Jonathan Cape/Observer/Comica Graphic Short Story Prize 2008
– Winner, Warner Comedy Box Competition 2007
– Finalist, Nivea Funny Women Awards 2007
– Foyle Young Poet, 1998