Kes Gray author page

Kes Gray biography

Kes Gray is a children’s author whose books are written for children of different ages. He has written more than 70 children’s books, including picture books and fiction. His first picture book, Eat Your Peas, won the Red House Children’s Book Award in 2001, and he later became a three-time category winner of that award.

Gray is the author of the Oi Frog and Friends series, created with illustrator Jim Field. The series includes Oi Frog!, Oi Dog, Oi Cat, Oi Duck-billed Platypus, Oi Puppies and Oi Aardvark!, using rhyme, animals and wordplay for early-years and primary readers.

His work also includes the Daisy books, with titles such as Daisy and the Trouble with Chocolate and Daisy and the Trouble with Nature. These books are comic fiction for younger readers and are connected with illustrators Nick Sharratt and Garry Parsons.

Gray has won the Sainsbury’s Children’s Book Award and the Laugh Out Loud Book Award, and he has been shortlisted for the British Book Awards. Oi Dinosaurs!, written by Kes Gray and illustrated by Jim Field, was scheduled as a paperback for 5 June 2025.

Kes Gray teaching resources

• Hachette Schools’ Kes Gray page provides an author profile, book list and related classroom downloads for Thoughts from a Quiet Bench, Pooems, Oi Frog and Friends! and Oi Frog and Friends teacher notes, with age ranges, themes and subject links.
• Hachette Schools’ Oi Frog and Friends! teaching resources provide Reception and KS1 English resources for ages 3-6 and 7-11, covering phonics, rhyming, comprehension, spelling, animals, Art and emotional literacy.
• Hachette Schools’ Thoughts from a Quiet Bench activity sheets provide a two-page PDF for ages 0-5 with writing prompts about sharing a bench and drawing activities about favourite animals, hobbies, food, places, colours and toys.
• Hachette Schools’ Pooems activity sheet is a one-page PDF for ages 0-5 with short rhyming poems and a drawing task asking children to match imagined poo designs to creatures.
• Macmillan Children’s Books’ You’re Called What?! activity sheets provide a two-page PDF with a Ministry of Silly Animal Names drawing form and a dot-to-dot Blue-Footed Booby colouring activity.
• Macmillan Children’s Books’ Zippo the Super Hippo colouring sheet is a one-page PDF asking children to design a superhero costume for Zippo, with prompts to add a cape, goggles, mask or other costume details.