Meet the illustrator Barbara Reid

Image from I love you More

I am excited to be attending the IBBY Congress in Ottawa, Canada in 2026. I think Barbara Reid will be one of the presenters because she was included in their promotional video. 

Each Barbara Reid illustration starts as a pencil drawing. Then Barbara moulds out her drawing using Plasticine. You might think that her illustrations would be delicate, but they’re actually rather heavy. Some of her final pictures weigh up to three kilograms! ... Barbara even describes her artwork as being “like a pizza” because her images are created by adding layer upon layer of Plasticine and detail after detail to construct the completed work. She uses her fingers and fingernails as well as sticks, pins, combs, wires, cloth and other items to help shape and build each part of the picture. If she makes a mistake, she just peels off the offending piece and starts again! She also mixes her own colours and adds materials such as silver paint or glitter to create special effects. Scholastic.ca

Meet Barbara Reid in this video of her book Perfect Snow. Here is her website with all her books and lots of extras. You can read Quill and Quire reviews of many of Barbara Reid's books here. 

Awards: She has won the Ezra Jack Keats Award, the Vicky Metcalf Award for Literature for Young People, The Governor General’s Award for Illustration and the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Award. In 2013 she became a member of the Order of Canada, and in 2015 she was named Honorary Chair of Family Literacy Day. Her book Picture the Sky won the 2018 CBC Fan Choice Award and was shortlisted for the 2018 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award.

Kirkus comments - The Subway Mouse "Bits of real litter and found bric-a-brac in Reid’s plasticine subterranean scenes add an air of authenticity to this grand tale of a mouse who leaves his cozy subway station nest to find the fabled “Tunnel’s End. ... Seen from mouse-eye level, the grimy, wonderfully detailed setting adds a tongue-in-cheek air, as well as making a properly vivid backdrop for this intrepid venture into the unknown."

Kirkus comments - Picture a Tree "The Plasticine is expressive, detailed and gestural, with emotions showing on each face and careful craft in even the tiniest leaf and twig. The background of each spread has been smoothed and textured, colored and filled with birds, leaves and airplanes. Readers will marvel at the amazing details she includes on each human and animal form—earrings, straw hats, melting ice cream—even eye-rolling teenage boys!"  Also read this review.