Wednesday 11 September – Kate Winter is the winner of the 2024 Klaus Flugge Prize awarded to the most exciting and promising newcomer to children’s picture book illustration. She won for her book The Fossil Hunter (Puffin Books), which tells the story of Mary Anning, the 19^th century palaeontologist whose discoveries in the cliffs of Lyme Regis transformed scientists’ understanding of the world. Via atmospheric watercolour illustrations, the book skilfully tells Mary’s personal story and details her discoveries and their scientific impact. Special gatefolds are a key part of the book, opening to reveal the prehistoric past, allowing readers to dip into Mary’s mind to see what she is thinking.

Kate Winter carried out much of her research for the book at the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences in Cambridge, where she lives, as well as at the Natural History Museum, London. She also read Mary Anning’s letters and journals and spent time in Lyme Regis, and it was walking on the beach and drawing in the places Mary loved that helped her really get to know her subject.

Of her book she says, “Mary was a creative thinker. She dared to dream up something no one had ever thought of before. That’s what I want to do with my work: I want to show new ways of looking at things and I want to take readers on a magical journey.”

The Klaus Flugge Prize judges describe The Fossil Hunter as a beautiful book and admired Kate Winter’s observational skills.

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