Anita was born in Portsmouth in 1965. After leaving school she had a variety of jobs including in a factory and a kennel! This was all before she became a children’s book illustrator.

Anita did a foundation course in visual studies at Manchester Polytechnic, followed by a degree course in illustration. Her first book, Bill’s Belly Button, was published a year after she graduated. Anita is best known for her illustrations for the picture book Guess How Much I Love You, which was shortlisted for the 1994 Kurt Maschler Award, and is now one of the world’s best-selling picture books. Illustrating was a labour of love, she says. “Every time I read this book, I want to cry. The story reminds me so much of my own son, who often plays this kind of game with me when it’s time for bed.”

Anita is married to a palaeontologist and has three children and a menagerie of animals, including cats, dogs, rabbits, toads, a lizard, a snake and a tortoise. She lives in Northern Ireland, and hopes, eventually, to set up a wildlife sanctuary there.