ABOUT NATASCHA BIEBOW

  • Natascha Biebow is the author of The Crayon Man: The True Story of the Invention of Crayola Crayons (2019), winner of the Irma Black Award for Excellence in Children’s Books, Elephants Never Forget and Is This My Nose?, winner of the Booktrust Best Book for Babies. She has several other writing projects underway, including non-fiction picture books and chapter book series.

    She has over 25 years’ experience commissioning and editing pre-school novelty books, picture books, early readers, young fiction, and (pop-up) non-fiction at ABC, Dorling Kindersley and Random House Children’s Books in London. She is the founder of Blue Elephant Storyshaping, a coaching, editing and mentoring service aimed at helping children’s authors and illustrators shape their picture books, young fiction and novels pre-submission. She has been the Regional Advisor of the British Isles Region of the Society of Children’s Book Writers since 1998.
    In 2018, she was awarded an MBE (Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire). The
    honour is conferred by Her Majesty The Queen in recognition for her services to children’s writers and illustrators. She was the recipient of the 2019 SCBWI Stephen Mooser Member of the Year Award. She was born in Johannesburg, R.S.A., and grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she attended the American school. She has lived in London since 1993, where she moved after completing a B.A. in Developmental Psychology from Smith College, MA.

    Now she lives just outside London with her family. She loves reading, savouring chocolate, spending time with kids and travelling to exciting new places. Her favourite colour is blue and, ever since she was little, her favourite animals were elephants.

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ARTIST STATEMENT

  • My new passion is creative nonfiction! I have several projects underway, including both fiction and non-fiction picture books and a young chapter book series.

    You can see the book trailer for my nonfiction picture book THE CRAYON MAN: THE TRUE STORY OF THE INVENTION OF CRAYOLA CRAYONS here.

    Winner of the Irma Black Award for Excellence in Children’s Literature, NSTA best STEM book, ILA Children’s Choice Reading List, JLG Gold Standard 


    Listen to the podcast interview here

    Listen to the read-aloud here

    With my editing hat on, my favorite job is shaping stories! I have a talent for visualizing books and encouraging authors and illustrators to find the heart of their stories. I love collaborating with people who are passionate about their work and understand that creating a great book is a journey, an organic process that evolves over time. I have a monthly blog for Words & Pictures on picture book craft, the  Picture Book Storyshaper.Find out about Blue Elephant Storyshaping here See my blog posts here.

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PUBLICATIONS - View in Bookstore