Catherine Rayner studied illustration at Edinburgh College of Art. She fell in love with the city and still lives there with her young family and a small menagerie of creatures including Shannon the horse, Ena the cat, and a goldfish called Richard, all of whom inspire her work. Catherine won the Best New Illustrator Award at the Booktrust Early Years Awards for Augustus and His Smile and has been awarded the prestigious CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal. Catherine's other titles for Macmillan include Victor, the Wolf with Wories; Five Bears; Mini and the Hardly Big Adventure; Arlo: The Lion Who Couldn't Sleep; Ernest, Solomon Crocodile; Solomon and Mortimer; and the award-winning Smelly Louie. She is also the illustrator of The Go-Away Bird and The Bowerbird, written by Julia Donaldson.