Britta Teckentrup author page

Britta Teckentrup biography

Britta Teckentrup is a children’s author and illustrator who was born in Hamburg, Germany, and grew up in Wuppertal. She moved to London in 1988 to study illustration and fine art at St Martin’s College and the Royal College of Art. Her work includes writing and illustrating picture books, illustrating texts by other writers, and creating artwork for children’s nonfiction and poetry collections.

She has written and illustrated more than seventy children’s books. Tree: A Peek-Through Picture Book was published by Doubleday Books for Young Readers on 9 February 2016 and was named one of the New York Public Library’s 100 Best Books for Kids 2016.

Her picture books for younger children include Under the Same Sky, a 2017 Caterpillar Books title for ages 4 to 6 that uses rhyming text and peep-through holes to explore similarities and differences in the animal kingdom. A Happy Place, written and illustrated by Teckentrup and published by Tiger Tales on 6 February 2024, is a 32-page picture book with cut-outs and peek-through pages for children aged 3 to 7.

Teckentrup has also illustrated books written or selected by others. The House by the Lake: The True Story of a House, Its History, and the Four Families Who Made It Home, written by Thomas Harding and illustrated by Teckentrup, was published by Candlewick Studio on 8 September 2020 for readers aged 7 to 10. Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright!: An Animal Poem for Every Day of the Year was collected by Fiona Waters and illustrated by Teckentrup; it won the Books Are My Bag Readers Awards Poetry Award in 2020.

Britta Teckentrup teaching resources

• Britta Teckentrup’s official books page provides a cover-gallery overview of her published books and a link to a full list of titles.
• Little Tiger’s Britta Teckentrup page provides an official publisher profile, contact link and book list including Tree, Bee, Moon, Sea, Bugs, A Happy Place, We Are Together, We Are All One and the nature peek-through activity books.
• The Carnegies’ Under the Same Sky teaching ideas provide a 10-page CLPE PDF for Key Stage 1, with picturebook sessions on illustration, narrative, visual response, reading comprehension, art, creative writing and shared discussion.
• Scottish Book Trust’s picture-books bereavement resource provides PDF and DOC downloads for ages 3-5 and 6-8, including The Memory Tree activities on remembering Fox, emotional language, grief, memory boxes and health and wellbeing discussion.
• Nosy Crow’s Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright! poetry resource pack provides a teacher-resource download linked to the National Trust poetry anthology illustrated by Britta Teckentrup, with email access to the classroom materials.
• Nosy Crow’s Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright! animal-collage activity provides an official activity-sheet download for creating animal collage artwork linked to Britta Teckentrup’s illustrations in the poetry anthology.
• Teachwire’s Neon Leon Early Years activities provide three classroom activities for Jane Clarke and Britta Teckentrup’s picture book, covering fluorescent-colour painting, colour and pattern recognition, chameleon hiding games and animal camouflage art.