After briefly considering careers in space travel, cookery and being a rabbit, Alex T. Smith finally decided to become an illustrator. In 2006 he graduated from Coventry University with a degree in Illustration and won second place in the Macmillan Prize for Children's Illustration. For such a young newcomer, Alex has already achieved great things. His first fiction series - Claude - has been selected for the Richard and Judy Children's Book Club 2011 and Bella and Monty recently won the Dundee Award. Eliot Jones, Midnight Superhero (Scholastic) was the first picturebook Alex illustrated and it won the Coventry Inspiration Book Award, and was longlisted for the Greenaway Medal in 2009. Alex was also shortlisted for The Best Emerging Illustrator by The Book Trust in 2008. He has since written and illustrated his own picture books including Egg (Hodder), Bella & Monty (Hodder), Home (Scholastic).