Charles Keeping: a master of both black and white line illustration and glorious colour picture books, Charles Keeping’s was one of the key artists who helped to revolutionise children’s book illustration in the 1960s. His evocative line drawings brought the physical and emotional battles of the heroes and heroines of books by Rosemary Sutcliff, Henry Treece and Alan Garner to life, while his colour work managed to imbue mundane London streets, sheds and intercity trains with a luminous beauty. His final towering achievement was to illustrate the complete works of Charles Dickens for the Folio Society. We find out more.

Alice in the pool of tears: John Tenniel’s pictures for Alice in Wonderland have become as famous and as loved as Lewis Carroll’s classic text and the picture of Alice swimming in a pool of her own tears is perhaps one of the most iconic scenes. What makes this image so remarkable, what contemporary inspiration did it draw on and why does it stand out in our memories?

Heinrich Hoffmann’s Der Struwwelpeter: a best-seller since 1845, Heinrich Hoffmann’s gruesome cautionary tales have enchanted (and terrified) children in German and in English. The author was no professional artist, but his scenes and characters have a direct simplicity that perhaps makes their violence even more disturbing – one reason why many have been censored in modern versions. We learn about Hoffmann and why he created these tales.