Axel Scheffler at Barnes Green

Gruffalo creator Axel Scheffler returns to Barnes drawing a selection of his famous characters, talking about his work and reading some of his stories.

Axel Scheffler was born in Hamburg, Germany. At school he was good at art but didn’t think of a career in illustration until he won a cuddly purple cow in a drawing competition. He moved to England in 1982 to study illustration at the Bath Academy of Art. Axel went on to illustrate a number of books for various publishers before he was suggested as the illustrator for Julia Donaldson’s first picture book text, A Squash and A Squeeze in 1993. and an award-winning team was created.

Their next book, The Gruffalo, has become a modern classic selling over 13 million copies worldwide and winning the 1999 Smarties Gold Medal and the 2000 Blue Peter Award amongst many. Their other titles include: Room on the Broom, The Smartest Giant in Town, Snail and the Whale, The Gruffalo’s Child and Stick Man, but Axel has also written and illustrated his own books including Muddle Farm and the Pip and Posy series.