Esther Hernando author page

Esther Hernando biography

Esther Hernando is a Spanish children’s book illustrator whose work appears across fiction, nonfiction and educational lists. After studying Comics and Illustration at Escola Joso for a year, she continued as a self-taught artist, developing a style noted for expressive characters, textured digital colour and clear visual storytelling.

Hernando’s illustration credits include S. J. King’s early-reader history adventures for DK: The Timekeepers: First Flight (2023) and The Timekeepers: The Ancient Olympics (2023). She also illustrated Allison Edwards’s social-emotional learning title How to Crack Your Peanut (2021). In chapter books, she is the long-running illustrator of Steve Smallman’s Maggie Sparks series, contributing to multiple titles published between 2021 and 2025, including Maggie Sparks and the Monster Baby, Maggie Sparks and the Truth Dragon and Maggie Sparks and the Alien Invasion.

Her client list spans trade and education imprints such as DK, Hachette, HarperCollins, Scholastic, Oxford University Press, Pearson, Franklin Watts, Collins Big Cat, Maverick Books and Highlights. Alongside series work, she contributes illustration for magazines and classroom resources.

Selected publications illustrated: How to Crack Your Peanut (2021); The Timekeepers: First Flight (DK, 2023); The Timekeepers: The Ancient Olympics (DK, 2023); Maggie Sparks series (Sweet Cherry Publishing, 2021–2025).

Publication milestone: Hernando illustrated S. J. King’s The Timekeepers: The Ancient Olympics, released by DK on 5 September 2023.