ABOUT NICKI

 

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Nicki Greenberg is a writer and illustrator based in Melbourne, Australia. Her first books, The Digits series, were published when she was fifteen years old. They sold more than 380,000 copies in Australia and New Zealand.

When Nicki was seventeen, two big things happened to her. She started drawing comics. And she read The Great Gatsby for the first time.  

Eight years and lots of comics later, those two big things came together when she embarked on the mad venture of adapting The Great Gatsby in graphic form. This labour of love took her six years, while she worked as a lawyer to support her scribbling habit. The result was a very unusual book. 

Nicki’s innovative adaptation of Gatsby was widely acclaimed and was selected as a White Raven at the Bologna Book Fair. She then went on to tackle Hamlet in a lavish 425-page “staging on the page”. Hamlet was joint winner of the 2011 Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Picture Book of the Year award.

Nicki's elder daughter was born one month after she finished drawing the final page of Hamlet, and her younger daughter two years later. Inspired by their delight in picture books, Nicki returned to working in this form. Her recent picture books include The Naughtiest ReindeerMonkey Red, Monkey Blue and BOM! Went the Bear. She has also written and illustrated non-fiction for children, and her book, It’s True! Squids Suck! was shortlisted for the 2006 Aventis Prize for Science Books.