Winter 2026
Enough space to imagine
David Driver applauds the playful grace of Laura Carlin’s picturebook illustrations
I have a great affection for children’s books and have been collecting them for many years. When visiting my local bookshop, I am frequently overwhelmed by a cacophony of titles competing for my attention, but they can disappoint. There has been a drift away from originality in children’s illustration: children’s picturebooks often seem to have a uniformity without being special. I grew up with the work of superb artists: Robin Jacques, Edward Ardizzone (see Eye 93), Edward Lear, Quentin Blake, Beatrix Potter, Arthur Rackham, E. H. Shepard and Maurice Sendak, who is quoted as saying, ‘a good picturebook is a visual poem.’ They all inspired me to draw and encouraged me to read.
Laura Carlin, illustrator and ceramicist, is a refreshing exception. A graduate of the Royal College of Art (2004), she has won multiple awards including the V&A Book Illustration Award. Titles she has illustrated include The Iron Man by Ted Hughes and David Almond’s The Woman Who Turned Children into Birds. Her book London: A History (Walker Studio), published in 2024, combines spellbinding drawings, poems, quotes and culture celebrating thousands of years of London’s history: a journey that starts with the Pleistocene Epoch and takes us through major and domestic events up to the present day …
David Driver design editor, writer, London
Read the full version in Eye no. 109 vol. 28, 2025
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