Background

Jacqueline was born Jacqueline M. Sinfield in June, 1945 in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, United Kingdom. She is the daughter of Anne (née Carey) and John Sinfield.

Education

Jacqui studied graphic design at Goldsmiths College.

Career

A few years after their first child, Finbar, was born, Jacqui Hawkins and her husband began coming up with ideas for storybooks, and decided to approach several publishers with their proposals in the form of “roughs”: words accompanied by sketchy drawings. Despite little initial interest, they persisted, and their first book, Witches, was purchased by Granada in 1981. That book would be the start of something big - within a decade the prolific Hawkins duo could boast authorship of more than sixty titles. Interestingly, on many of their earliest books, Jacqui did not have her name on the title page; in Witches, for example, the book was credited to “Colin Hawkins and an old witch.” This would change after a few titles after Colin demanded that his wife receive equal billing from publishers who incorrectly considered her only a minor contributor to each volume. As Colin recalled to Books for Keeps interviewer Stephanie Netted, one publisher said, “‘Well, we can’t put every little housewife’s name on all the books.’ Well, without this little housewife, the book wouldn’t be here!”

Among the many titles issuing from the creative minds of the Hawkinses are Adding Animals, a brightly colored lift-the-flap book that Booklist contributor Denise M. Wilms noted transforms basic math into something fun. In their Pat the Cat, designed for beginning readers, words like “fat”, “bat”, “cat”, “mat”, and “sat” tell the story of a plump kitty, a “fun, and ... painless way to absorb some phonics and a sight vocabulary,” according to Wilms. First published in the mid-1980s and re-released in both the United States and England, the books This Little Pig, Incy Wincy Spider, and The Elephant “have stood the test of time delightfully,” according to Books for Keeps reviewer Roy Blatchford.

Achievements

• Jacqueline Hawkins is an English book author and illustrator. In league with her husband, Colin Hawkins, she is part of the popular children’s book-writing team that has created such popular works as Tog the Dog, Terrible, Terrible Tiger, and Foxy and Friends Go Racing. Featuring engaging animal characters, an offbeat sense of fun, and engaging texts, these and many other titles have proved popular with the picture-book set in both the Hawkinses’ native England as well as in the United States and many other countries. In addition to their constant presence on bookstore shelves, the Hawkinses and their comic vision have also made their way to British television in the form of a weekly series featuring the character “Foxy,” the main character in such books as Foxy in the Kitchen, Foxy Plays Hide and Seek, and Foxy and His Little Sister.

Works

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  • Max and the Magic Word

    (Max the dog becomes angry when his animal friends refuse ...)

    1986
  • Spooks

    (Describes different types of ghosts and where to spot the...)

    1983
  • I Spy: The Lift-The-Flap ABC Book

    (A silly text and humorous illustrations make an alphabet ...)

    1989
  • Witches

    (A facetious guide to witches and witch lore describes the...)

    1981
  • I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly

    (A cumulative folk song in which the solution proves worse...)

    1987
  • Jen the Hen

    (This rhyming book focuses on a particular vowel sound, bu...)

    1985
  • Oops-A-Daisy

    (Big bear and little bear indicate their eyes, ears, nose,...)

    1986
  • Jen the Hen

    (Jen the hen sends a message to Ken and Ben via Wren to me...)

    1985
  • Knock! Knock!

    (The spooky creatures in a haunted house present a variety...)

    1990
  • I'm Not Sleepy

    (The story of a duckling's search for his mummy.)

    1986
  • Pat the Cat 1983
  • Mig the Pig 1984
  • Whose House? 1998
  • Foxy Plays Hide and Seek 1996
  • Snap! Snap! 1984
  • NUMBERLIES 1991
  • This Old Car 1988
  • Tog the Dog 1986
  • Where's My Mummy? 1985
  • Here's a Happy Pig 1988
  • Terrible, Terrible Tiger 1987
  • Busy A. B. C. 1987
  • Where's Bear? 1986
  • SCHOOL 1994
  • Cosmic Cat and the Space Spider 1988
  • Greedy Goat 1999
  • Monsters Visit Granny 1984
  • Here's a Happy Elephant 1987
  • How to Look After Your Dog 1991
  • Dip, Dip, Dip 1986

Connections

In 1968 Jacqui married Colin Hawkins (a writer and illustrator). She had known him as a child, as their families were acquainted with each other. Both have Irish Catholic roots, and would go to Ireland to visit their grandparents, who owned farms in Ireland just one mile apart. They began dating in their late teens.

They have two children, Finbar and Sally.

Father:

John Sinfield

Mother:

Anne (née Carey) Sinfield

Spouse:

Colin Hawkins

Daughter:

Sally Hawkins

Son:

Finbar Hawkins

References

• Contemporary Authors, Vol. 184
  2000