Holly Wadsworth-Hill

Creative Director / Author

“Hello! I’m Holly, and I’m the author and founder of Picture-This Books™. If you’ve read About the Books, you’ll know that the initial idea for Picture-This Books actually came from something that my youngest son said to me during our trip to Northern Ireland in 2017.

Besides Picture-This Books, I’ve spent most of my career to date as a retail copywriter and online journalist. For 15 years, I wrote for a variety of High Street brands and media outlets. Over the years, I have interviewed celebrities, written children’s books for other brands, reported on major entertainment events and crafted product stories for the latest toy crazes.

When I was in my early 20s, I completed a distance learning course in writing for children. Then, as with so many grand intentions, the day job and motherhood took over, and I shelved my plans to write children’s books and began copywriting. I started freelancing for Hamleys in 2010, a contract that only ended when the pandemic struck, and this gig – above all others – gave me the freedom to indulge my love of all things childish and brilliantly bonkers – and to begin experimenting more seriously with writing for children.

Things were ticking over quite nicely when along came a fleeting comment that led to an unexpected change of direction and would eventually turn into Picture-This Books™.  See About the Books for more on this.

Things were ticking over quite nicely when along came a fleeting comment that led to an unexpected change of direction and would eventually turn into Picture-This Books™.

I am fascinated by childhood and the stages of cognitive development, the formative effects of early life experiences and opportunity, and the nature v nurture debate. When my children were little, I loved watching them learn new things, play and figure things out for themselves. I also loved watching them lose themselves in imaginative play and make-believe.

It’s as though we are actually watching their cogs turn and their world expanding. And I guess we are, aren’t we? That’s the privilege of parents and caregivers, isn’t it? How lucky are we?

Children brim with possibility. I love that.

They only go and grow up though, don’t they?

Just as we get used to their non-stop noise, relentless questions about utter nonsense, and 5 am wake-up calls, BAM – suddenly they are big sulky pre-teens who only speak to you when they’re hungry or need a lift somewhere.

Of course, this is part of the fascination – childhood is temporary. Incontrovertibly influential, but temporary.

I’m now fortunate enough to be invited into schools, book and toy shops, and children’s clubs, to read and workshop Picture-This Books – one of my favourite parts of the job!

Children’s literature is an important tool for education, but what are we teaching our children if they can’t relate to the protagonists of their favourite books?

Picture-This Books are written and designed to contribute to remedying this. We stand for fairness and inclusion, promoting equality and celebrating difference in as much as we possibly can in our capacity as children’s book creators, and the Picture-This Books brand as a whole. We are committed to being anti-racist, pro-gender equality, supportive of all marginalised groups, and free choice, in all its forms.

In Picture-This Books we also seek to provide children with a calming and age-appropriate mindfulness activity.