The Snow Queen

Laura Barrett is a London artist specialising in intricate and decorative silhouette illustrations as well as traditional papercut artwork. She has worked for clients as varied as the BBC, John Lewis, Ted Baker, Taschen, and Toni and Guy. The Snow Queen is her first title for Orchard Books.

Geraldine McCaughrean has written over 140 books and plays for both adults and children, including Peter Pan in Scarlet, the official sequel to J M Barrie's Peter Pan, which was one of the most talked about and successful children's titles of 2006. Geraldine McCaughrean has won the Carnegie Medal, the Whitbread Children's Book Award (three times), the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, the Smarties Bronze Award (four times), the Blue Peter Book of the Year award and the Blue Peter Special Book to Keep Forever award. Geraldine is the first author to have been short listed, by librarians, for the Carnegie Medal six times, on at least one occasion in each of the past four decades, thus once again recognising the quality of her writing over the years. Visit her website at www.geraldinemccaughrean.co.uk

Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was a Danish author and poet, most famous for his timeless, classic fairy tales.