Author Description

Product DescriptionHolding tightly to his old bit of blanket as he attends his first birthday party, Alfie finds a way to be helpful, but it means putting down his blanket first.From Publishers WeeklyIn a sequel to Alfie Gets in First and Alfie's Feet, Alfie goes to his first birthday party all by himself, clinging to his blanket. But when the birthday boy tries to frighten another guest with a mask, Alfie puts down the blanket and offers reassurance. "Hughes epitomizes the warmth and the importance of happenings in families with a graceful telling and full-color pictures," PW said.Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.About the AuthorShirley was born in West Kirby, near Liverpool, and studied fashion and dress design at Liverpool Art School, before continuing her studies at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford. She then embarked on a career as a freelance illustrator in London, where she still lives today. She illustrated other writers' work, including Noel Streatfeild, Alison Uttley, Ian Seraillier, Margaret Mahy and notably Dorothy Edwards's My Naughty Little Sister series. Shirley began to write and draw her own picture books when her children were young. Her first book - Lucy and Tom's Day - was published in 1960, and she followed it with, among others, Dogger and the Alfie series. Shirley Hughes has won the Other Award, the Eleanor Farjeon Award, and the Kate Greenaway Medal for Illustration twice, for Dogger in 1977 and for Ella's Big Chance in 2003. In 2007 Dogger was voted the public's favourite Greenaway winner of all time. Shirley received an OBE in 1999 for services to Children's Literature, and is the first recipient of Booktrust's Lifetime Achievement Award.Review"There's just something so reassuring about Hughes' colourful drawings of the day-to-day activities that you know inside out... words and pictures merge seamlessly... Hughes is a magical storyteller with an instinctive understanding of the mind of the pre-schooler... she makes the ordinary extraordinary" Guardian "Shirley Hughes is a national treasure" -- Philip Pullman "Hughes' perceptive eye captures the expressions and feelings of small children perfectly" Scotsman