For his work as a children’s author, Pieńkowski was awarded the 2019 Booktrust lifetime achievement award, which has in the past gone to some of the greatest names in children’s books, including Shirley Hughes, Raymond Briggs and Judith Kerr. Pieńkowski was also twice the UK nominee – in 1982 and 2008 – for the international Hans Christian Andersen award, the highest recognition available to creators of children’s books.

Meg and Mog - Penguin Books UK

Pieńkowski’s work was often inspired by his Polish childhood and experiences as a wartime refugee. His interest in paper cut-outs stemmed from his time in an air raid shelter in Warsaw, where a soldier had kept him amused by cutting newspapers into shapes for him. After Nicoll died in 2012, Pieńkowski worked on new Meg and Mog titles with his civil partner, David Walser, a translator, artist, musician and writer. Jan Pienkowski is a celebrated illustrator of children's books. He has won the Greenaway Medal twice - for his illustration of Joan Aiken's The Kingdom Under the Sea and for Haunted House. Jan lives in London.Look for the rhyming names in the story (Jess, Tess, Bess, Cress). See if you can think of any more together eg mess/less or words which rhyme with Meg or Mog? (Peg/leg – or hog/dog). Helen Nicoll and Jan Pienkowski have worked together for over forty years, first at the BBC and then on the MEG and MOG books. Jan Pienkowski is a celebrated author of children's books, he has won the Greenaway Medal twice for his illustration of Joan Aiken's The Kingdom Under the Sea and Haunted House. He illustrated for Granta magazine and designed posters for university theatre productions. At the beginning of his career, Pieńkowski was employed to draw live on the BBC children’s programme Watch!, before the book world discovered him.

Meg and Mog | BookTrust Meg and Mog | BookTrust

Mog and Owl are hungry, so Meg makes a spell. It goes wrong and they all go to bed without any supper, but Mog and Owl are still hungry... The critic Nicolette Jones, who chaired the judges selecting Pieńkowski for the award, said he “brought magic to children’s illustration”, while her fellow judge, the author SF Said, said: “Books such as Meg and Mog have shaped so many generations now that they have become part of the fabric of British childhood and culture in general.” Helen Nicoll was born in Natland, Westmorland, in 1937. She was educated at schools in Bristol; Dartington Hall, Devon; and Froebel Education Institute, London. Helen Nicoll married Robert Kime in 1970 and they have one daughter and one son.Don’t expect closure. Don’t be friends with Meg. She and her cat are mysteriously safe from the ‘accident’, but you end up trapped as a mouse for a FULL YEAR before she’ll even try to fix the situation! …Assuming Mog didn’t eat you.