Meet Zoë Tucker!
We love sharing our amazing students’ incredible success stories – but it makes a nice change to be able to share some of our wonderful teachers’ success stories too!
Meet Zoë Tucker! Brilliant children’s picture book art director (here holding up the award-winning How to Hide a Lion, which she art directed and designed), acclaimed picture book author, and co-teacher of Illustrating Children’s Books.
Zoë Tucker, who co-teaches our raved-about Illustrating Children’s Books course alongside art agent Lilla, has just published two more children’s picture books, alongside her previous titles. And all this as well as years of experience as a brilliant children’s book art director whose clients include top author-illustrators Axel Scheffler, Nick Sharratt, Helen Stephens, and Guy Parker-Rees!
Full page spread from Ada Lovelace and the Number Crunching Machine, written by Zoë Tucker for Illustrating Children’s Books and illustrated by Make Art That Sells student Rachel Katstaller.
ada lovelace and the number crunching machine
How a Make Art That Sells student got work from class … Long-term fans, followers and friends of Make Art That Sells will remember that back in 2019, Make Art That Sells student Rachel Katstaller bagged a book deal from the pitch she’d created in Illustrating Children’s Books, based on Zoë’s story about Ada Lovelace that she wrote exclusively for the Illustrating Children’s Books course. Ada Lovelace and the Number Crunching Machine was published in fall 2019 and was described by Kirkus as “Inspiring, feminist, and informative in equal parts”: click here to read more.
Full page spread from Greta and the Giants, based on a story written by Zoë Tucker for Illustrating Children’s Books and illustrated by Zoe Persico.
greta and the giants
Then at the end of 2019, the story Greta and the Wolves, which Zoë also originally wrote for the Illustrating Children’s Books course, was published as Greta and the Giants, and was featured in the Guardian’s list of the best books of 2019 for children of all ages.
brand new books by zoë tucker
Now Zoë has published two more children’s picture books that she’s written for Wide Eyed Editions for Quarto Kids (the same publisher who recently commissioned Make Art That Sells student Caroline Bonne-Müller’s first picture book gig, which she landed after taking art she’d created in the Illustrating Children’s Books course to the Bologna Children’s Book Fair: read more here).
We are the Supremes by author, art director and Make Art That Sells co-teacher, Zoë Tucker, illustrated by Salini Perera.
Both stories deal with themes of friendship, shared dreams and hard work. We are the Supremes follows Flo, Mary and Diana, three young Black girls who battled adversity to become the USA’s most successful vocal group. And in We are the Beatles, we join Fab Four John, Paul, George and Ringo to learn how the power of friendship helped four boys from Liverpool become one of the world’s best-loved bands, drawing huge crowds, kicking off Beatlemania, and inspiring generations of musicians to come. Both books are available now!
We are the Beatles by author, art director and Make Art That Sells co-teacher, Zoë Tucker, illustrated by Mark Wang.
Would you love to build a successful career in the magical world of children’s picture book illustration? Illustrating Children’s Books starts in just a couple of months, on Monday, April 12th, and will feature all-new texts written by Zoë exclusively for the course! Or if you dream of writing your very own children’s picture book, book your spot now for My Kid Book Pitch.
See you in class!
Lots of love
The Make Art That Sells team xxx
P.S. There’s less than a month until we kick off Assignment Bootcamp 2021: get something new from art agent Lilla every Monday for four months for less than the price of a couple of lattes per week!
