Catherine Jacob

When Catherine Jacob isn’t writing rolicking rhyming picture books or tales for older children, she’s reporting on TV at Channel 5 News where she’s won many awards for her journalism or visiting schools with her creative writing workshops.

Catherine has a number of exciting new picture book projects in the pipeline with some sought-after illustrators and various different publishers. Her recent rhyming picture book, Betsy Buglove and the Brave Butterfly, published by Scholastic, was a follow up to Betsy Buglove Saves the Bees, which was illustrated by the internationally-renowned Lucy Fleming, became a UK children’s environmental bestseller and has so far been translated and sold into eleven territories, with book three in the Betsy series hot on its heels.

Doctor Fairytale, the first in a new fairytale series, illustrated by Hoang Giang, was published by Walker Books in October 2024 and has already been sold into five different territories, including the US, with more rhyming picture books from Catherine on the way at Walker.

Catherine has also published four books in the Puppy Club series with Little Tiger Books. This is her first chapter book series for slightly older readers. Her laugh-out-loud spooky escapade, There’s a Troll on my Toilet is a perennial favourite during the spooky season. Santa’s Special Gift is another go-to Christmas story.

As a news correspondent at ITN’s Channel Five News, Catherine won the Monte Carlo TV and Film Festival’s Golden Nymph award for Best News Item for her investigative film, ‘The Shipbreakers of Bangladesh’ and was a finalist in the Royal Television Society’s Young Journalist of the Year. She was also Environment Correspondent for Sky News, travelling to far flung places like the Amazon and the Arctic Circle to report on this pressing issue. She is now freelance so she can devote more time to her children and her writing.

Catherine now lives in York with her husband, three children and two mischievous pups.