Watership Down

Richard Adams grew up in Berkshire, the son of a country doctor. After an education at Oxford, he spent six years in the army and then went into the Civil Service. He originally began telling the story of Watership Down to his two daughters and they insisted he publish it as a book. It quickly became a huge success with both children and adults, and won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award and the Carnegie Medal in 1972. Richard Adams wrote many novels and short stories, including Shardik and The Plague Dogs. He died in 2016, aged 96.

Tundra’s David Parkins is the award-winning illustrator of over fifty children’s books. He began his career at Dyfed College of Art in Wales, studying wildlife illustration. He then went to Lincoln College of Art for three years, and has been a freelance illustrator since his graduation in 1979. He spent several years at the beginning of his career producing illustrations for educational publishers, and has earned most of his keep drawing for the British cartoon, The Beano. David Parkins lives in England with his wife and nine-year-old daughter.