Katie Dale had her first poem 'The Fate of The School Hamster' published in The Cadbury's Book of Children's Poetry, aged 8 and hasn't stopped writing since.

On graduating, she went travelling through South-East Asia - only to discover whilst in a Vietnam internet cafe that she was a winner of the SCBWI 2008 Undiscovered Voices competition.

With a keen eye for beautiful colours, Kathryn has an ability to capture that special child-like charm that makes her illustrations unique.

She grew up in Connecticut, USA, and as a child developed a deep love of picture books. To feed this obsession, she worked as an intern in the children's department of Sterling Publishing and received her BFA in Illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design.

Now living on the Yale campus in New Haven, Connecticut, Kathryn hikes, reads the newspaper, bicycles poorly and cooks elaborate meals daily. Her artwork is cheerful, colourful and features a lot of very happy children. She will always prefer the countryside, even if is filled with hateful mosquitos.