Shoo Rayner

Shoo Rayner is a British children's author and illustrator.

Life
Prolific author and illustrator Shoo Rayner was born Hugh Rayner, to a Norwegian mother and a British father. His father served in the British Army, so the family moved around a lot. Educated mainly at boarding school, first at a preparatory school in Surrey, then at King's School, Canterbury. After his father had left the army (out of school, Shoo's formative years were spent in Germany, Pakistan, Aden, and Wiltshire), before the family settled in Bedford, and Shoo attended Bedford School as a day-boy. The source of his nickname, Shoo, originated while his family lived in Pakistan. His nanny, Uppa, couldn't pronounce the name "Hugh", so she called him Shoo instead. It stuck. He was interviewed at Cambridge College of Arts and Technology by children's author and illustrator, Colin McNaughton, to whom he remains indebted for introducing him to the world of children's books.

Rayner lives in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, with his wife and two children. He has three cats - Shula, Fizz and Fizz’s kitten, Mister Darcy.

Career
Author and illustrator; previous jobs include painting signs and silk screening, and working as a mapmaker for the Land Registry, Peterborough. Rayner's first book contract was with Ernest Benn. The book was to be called The Trouble With Strawberry Jam Pancakes, but after delivering three separate sets of artwork the title was shelved. His first published work was a set of six stories for the Oxford Reading Tree called Lydia.

Rayner has had a hand in several popular series for early readers. He is the illustrator for Rose Impey's long-running "Animal Crackers" books, and as both author and illustrator, he created the "Dark Claw," "Rex Files," and "Ginger Ninja" series. These series have very different themes—the "Dark Claw" books are a spoof of Star Wars and other such science-fiction stories, starring cats and rodents; the "Rex Files" (a take-off on the television series The X-Files) feature a duo of canine sleuths named Rex and Franky who investigate various terrifying paranormal happenings; and the "Ginger Ninja" books are about a pawball-mad kitten named Ginger who faces typical elementary-school problems such as bullies. Rayner has said that The Ginger Ninja is his favorite book, both because the Ginger Ninja is the character most like him (Rayner himself had bright red hair as a child) and "because that was the book where I looked deepest into the darkesty regions of my character and managed to come up almost sane at the end," he said in an interview with Word Pool.

Despite their different subject matter, all of Rayner's books were designed to be both easy to comprehend and entertaining for children who are just learning to read on their own. They feature short sentences, short chapters, and almost comic-book-like illustrations. Explaining what he finds most rewarding about his work, Rayner said in the Word Pool interview, "My readers are at the most important stage of reading development, where they can be put off or enthused for life." While he admits that the early-reader genre is often overlooked by critics, "children find it for themselves and read my books by the bucket load. That's my reward."

Rayner illustrated the MudPuddle Farm series of books written by Michael Morpurgo. in January 2012 9 million copies of the books were given away in McDonald's Happy Meals in the UK. http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/ukhome/Aboutus/Newsroom/news_pages/McDonalds_links_up_with_HarperCollins.html

Rayner has been at the forefront of children's authors using IT. His interactive website has been running since 1997. He started his YouTube Drawing School, ShooRaynerDrawing, in 2010 and won the YouTube NextUpEurope Competition in 2011. he has another successful YouTube channel called DrawStuffRealEasy and ShooRaynerLife which is a blog and entertainment channel featuring "learn British Culture" a tongue in cheek look at Britain.