Alison Jane Miles

Hello! I’m Alison Miles — a lover of the seaside, of poetry and art: three passions that led me to create the Snippy The Crab adventure series of rhyming picture books.

As a child, I loved the poems of Belloc, Milligan and Lear, and my professional life as a musician has reinforced my belief that both rhythm and sound engage our senses in a fundamental way.

Amazingly, I am one of Bologna Children’s Book Fair 2021 accepted artists, even though I only began drawing in 2019 when I bought an iPad! I have no formal training, but my pictures are inspired by paintings which tell a story, such as ‘On The Brink’ (Elmore) and ‘The Last of England’ (Maddox Brown).

I feel that education should be broad, inspiring and above all creative; since the creative arts provide a way for young people to express themselves and find both resonance and solace.

Dive in with Snippy and take a rollicking ride through his wild escapades in our oldest and most compelling form of story-telling – the narrative poem!