'The Blitzed Brits'.
Kate Sheppard is a British children's book illustrator, who has worked for many publishing companies. As a comic artist, she is notable for her contributions to Terry Deary's 'Horrible Histories' series. She should not be confused with American painter/illustrator Kate Shepherd (b. 1961).
Life and illustration career
Kate Sheppard hails from Gloucestershire. Between 1982 and 1985, she studied art at Bradford Art College. Since 1992, she has made colorful and quirky illustrations for fiction and non-fiction titles by major UK publishers, including Walker Books, Macmillan Children's Books, Orchard Books, Random House, Hachette, Scholastic and Egmont. Further notable illustration work by Sheppard includes a series of three 'Tilly Beany' books by Annie Dalton, and a series of six 'Ask Dr. K. Fisher about...' books by Claire Llewellyn. Sheppard has additionally designed greeting cards. Sheppard has also contributed to workshops held during the Ledbury Poetry Festival, the Bath Children's Literature Festival, the Wye Valley River Festival and the Art of Libraries.
Horrible Histories
Although Sheppard usually doesn't draw comics, she has provided one-panel cartoons and short comics to two books from Terry Deary's best-selling educational children's book series 'Horrible Histories', published by Scholastic. Deary's series focuses on historical eras, though with specific focus on the gruesome bits that children really want to hear about during boring lessons. Her first contributions appeared in 'The Blitzed Brits' (1994), about life in the United Kingdom during World War II. Afterwards, she also provided illustrations to the special 'Cruel Kings and Mean Queens' (1995), a chronological overview of all British monarchs and the eccentric, sometimes gory aspects of their reign. Other artists who illustrated the 'Horrible Histories' series have been Martin Brown, Philip Reeve and Mike Philips.
Recognition
In 2009, Sheppard's 'Ask Dr. K. Fisher About Minibeasts' (Macmillan) received the award for 'Best Children's Illustrated Book' from The English Association. Since 2000, she is a member of The Society of Authors.
'Cruel Kings and Mean Queens', about Elizabeth I's direct order to have Mary, Queen of Scots, beheaded.