Alan Snow has worked in a wide variety of situations: design of a children's museum in Japan; design of a project robot; mixing flavors into yogurt; forestry and tree surgery; box-maker in a factory; car design on a Third World jeep project; laborer in a bed factory; sound engineer for Reggae and Indie bands; and work in animation, film, and computers. He has even had a hand in the creation of wedding dresses...and inflatable ball gowns.
Mr. Snow attended art college between 1975 and 1979, where he studied fashion design and illustration. This schooling proved helpful not only for creating those inflatable ball gowns, but also for his more bookish pursuits: he has been illustrating since 1983, and has both written and illustrated over 160 books for children.
Of all of those books, Here Be Monsters! (2006, Atheneum) is Alan Snow's first novel. But this book has its own story: it was first published in 2005, in England, by Oxford University Press, in three parts: Pants Ahoy!, The Man in the Iron Socks, and Cheese Galore. When Snow's novels made it across the pond to the United States, they were merged into one big, 544 page, 500+ illustration-filled book: Here Be Monsters! The Ratbridge Chronicles, Volume 1.
Alan Snow was born in Bexley Heath, London, England, in 1959. He currently lives in Bath, England, and has one daughter and one son.
Sources:
Backflap of Here Be Monsters!
