Lara Jones obituary | Books | The Guardian

Lara Jones was best known for the Poppy Cat series

via guardian.co.uk

Posted via web from daphnelee's posterous

My daughter the children's author and illustrator Lara Jones, who has died of malignant melanoma, aged 34, was best known for her Poppy Cat series of books. She produced other characters (Lola and Binky, and Davy the Dinosaur) and illustrated books by other authors (I Want a Mini Tiger by Joyce Dunbar being her final work), but Poppy Cat was her most successful endeavour, selling millions of copies worldwide. It is currently in production for television, to be screened on the Nick Jr channel in the autumn.

Lara was born in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, the eldest child of two authors (myself and my wife Mal Lewis Jones), but spent her childhood in Shropshire, with her younger brother, Levin, her sister, Jessie, and many family pets. Lara was a committed vegetarian from the age of five, preferring not to endorse any sort of cruelty to living things. She attended local schools, but much preferred the freedom and creativity of her home life.

From a very early age, she was an independent, sensitive and visual thinker, eventually going on to study fine art at Canterbury College of Art and then at Cheltenham College, where her large, vivid paintings bore testament to a childhood lovingly observed, and where she also won a travel bursary to Mexico. It was here, too, that she met a fellow artist, Shaun Clarke, and lived with him in Cheltenham and then London.

Working for the Royal Academy and then for the Inkshed artists' agency, Lara illustrated two toddlers' books for Scholastic before winning a contract with Macmillan/Campbell Books for Poppy Cat. She remained modest, preferring to lead a simple life in the countryside. After she and Shaun were married in 2003, they returned to Shropshire and bought a Georgian farmhouse, where their two daughters, India and Etienne, were born.

Lara won awards for several of her books, including the Book Trust's baby book of the year award for Poppy Cat's Farm in 2005. Goodnight Poppy Cat (2003) was included in Junior magazine's top 100 books of all time.

Throughout her life, she maintained the kind of innocence and generosity of spirit that many aspire to. Her legacy is of gentleness, love and the bright enthusiasm which can be found radiating from the pages of her books. She is survived by Shaun, India and Etienne, Levin and Jessie, her mother and myself.