Quentin is the greatest and most loved illustrator in the world

David Walliams

Quentin Blake is without doubt Britain's best-known and best-loved living illustrator. His work has stimulated the fantastical flights of fancy of successive generations of children and adults since the early 1960s. And yet - surprisingly - there has never been a study of this gentle, committed and influential artist. Until Ghislaine Kenyon's book, that is...

Sir Christopher Frayling

It is so intelligent, so modest, so elegantly written, carefully considered, and beautifully produced. Every sentence is packed with thought. It's a gem of a book – bringing imagination and empathy back into play in criticism. I'm loving it so much that I'm even taking it slowly – savouring a page at a time

Frances Wilson

The pictures in this book will make you smile ... The drawings are at the heart of it all, and Ghislaine Kenyon is very good at evoking a sense of not only the artist at work, but of the images themselves, those scratchy, energetic people, animals and other assorted creatures (Zagazoo!) that skitter across his pages and walls so freely ... Kenyon is full of praise for her subject, but the greatest compliment she pays him, in a society that so undervalues books for children, is to take his work seriously. Her book is a celebration, yes, but not one that's rooted in sentiment or nostalgia; rather, in insightful analysis of what makes this artist unique and why his effect on us is so comprehensively positive. It's an apt and well-deserved celebration.

Spectator

A "fine", richly illustrated study of man and work.

The Week

As Ghislaine Kenyon outlines in this charming and energetic biography, there is a case to be made for Blake as an artist whose work can surprise and delight children and grown-ups alike … Lavishly illustrated, brimming with images both familiar and foreign … As an off-beat biography it is an endearing tribute to an artist of remarkable intelligence and imagination

Liam Hess, Times Literary Supplement