Chris Riddell

As of 2019, Riddell and his wife, Joanne Burroughes, an illustrator and print-maker, live in Brighton with three children. Daughter Katy Riddell is also a children's book illustrator, including of Pongwiffy by Kaye Umansky.

In November 2017, Riddell publicly accused department store chain John Lewis of plagiarizing elements of his 1986 picture book Mr Underbed for their Christmas advert "Moz the Monster". The chain defended the allegations, noting that the concept of a monster who lived under a child's bed was a common literary trope, and that both works had dissimilar plots. The row led to renewed interest in the book, with copies quickly selling out from stores.

Books that he wrote or illustrated have won three Nestlé Smarties Book Prizes and have been silver or bronze runners-up four times. On 9 June 2015, he was appointed the UK Children's Laureate.

His brother Rick Riddell, a secondary teacher at the Alice Smith School, died in February 2012.

Other books illustrated by Chris Riddell include Fergus Crane, Corby Flood, and Hugo Pepper, all set in the same world. These books were also co-written with Paul Stewart. Stewart and Riddell also collaborated with him on Muddle Earth and the Barnaby Grimes series. Most recently, Riddell has both written and illustrated the Ottoline series, written while he was on holiday visiting his brother in Malaysia. The first book, Ottoline and the Yellow Cat (2007), won the final Smarties Prize in age category 6–8 years (the Smarties were discontinued in 2008). It has been followed by Ottoline Goes to School and Ottoline at Sea.

Three years later, Riddell won the Greenaway again, this time for his work on Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver" (Walker, 2004), retold by Martin Jenkins from the 1726 classic Gulliver's Travels. The panel chair commented, "Gulliver is a tour de force. Chris Riddell has given us 144 pages of fantastic, faultless illustrations, which constantly extend the power of the text. Our winning title also proves that today's picture books are not just for the youngest age-groups, but are [also] an important source of pleasure and learning for readers of all ages." (The 2001 and 2004 panels recommended Pirate Diary and Gulliver for readers age 8+ and 10+, while their recommendations for thirteen other shortlisted books ranged from 2+ to 7+.)

In 2002, he named as influences Tenniel and E. H. Shepard, the first illustrator of The Wind in the Willows and Winnie the Pooh.

Some of Riddell's most notable work is The Edge Chronicles (from 1998), a children's book series cowritten with Paul Stewart and illustrated by Riddell alone. Set in the fictional world known as "The Edge", the books have been praised for Chris's beautifully detailed line drawings and the unique nature of their collaborative writing process.

For his illustrations, Riddell was a commended runner-up for the 1994 Greenaway Medal (Something Else by Kathryn Cave) and highly commended for 1999 (Castle Diary by Richard Platt). He won the 2001 Medal for illustrating Pirate Diary: The Journal of Jake Carpenter by Platt. The press release called Pirate Diary the first "information book" to win the Medal since 1975 and "a fictionalised account". "when he spoke with author Richard Platt the harsh necessities of historical accuracy came into play. 'Everything I got excited about got shot down. No parrots, eye-patches or wooden legs. Thank god there were weapons and amputations!'" (quoting Riddell). (After Castle Diary and Pirate Diary, Platt continued the Diary series with illustrator David Parkins.)

Riddell worked as an illustrator at The Economist beginning in the 1980s and at the Observer starting in 1995.

Chris Riddell, OBE (/r ɪ d ˈ ɛ l / rid-EL ) (born 13 April 1962) is a British illustrator and occasional writer of children's books and a political cartoonist for the Observer. He has won three Kate Greenaway Medals as well as the British librarians' annual award for the best-illustrated children's book, and two of his works were commended runners-up, a distinction dropped after 2002.

Chris Riddell was born in 1962 in Cape Town, South Africa, where his father was a "liberal Anglican vicar" and was opposed to the system of apartheid. The family returned to England when Chris was one year old, where he spent the rest of his childhood with his sister and three brothers, who now live in South Africa, Brighton, England, and Egypt. He attended Archbishop Tenison's Grammar School in Kennington. Chris displayed artistic talent from an early age and was encouraged in this by his mother. (She gave him paper and pen to keep quiet during his father's sermons.) As a child, he admired the work of Sir John Tenniel, the first illustrator of Alice in Wonderland, and W. Heath Robinson.