THE creator of a menagerie of animal characters including a tiger, hare and crocodile will visit Biggar Library on December 6.

Children’s author and illustrator Catherine Rayner will read from her books and run an illustration workshop for children from pre-school to eight years old.

Catherine’s best known creatures include: Augustus the tiger, Harris the hare, Solomon the crocodile and Abigail the giraffe and she has won many awards for books about their adventures.

Winner of the 2009 CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal for her second book 'Harris Finds His Feet’, Catherine has now been shortlisted four times for the award. She was also awarded the Best New Illustrator Award at the Booktrust Early Years Awards in 2006 and was named one of Booktrust’s ten Best New Illustrators in 2008. In 2010, she was the inaugural illustrator in residence at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

In 2012 Catherine’s book 'Iris and Isaac’ won the UKLA Children’s Book Award and the Dutch edition of 'Solomon Crocodile’ has been selected as Picture Book of the Year 2014 in The Netherlands by the CPNB.

She finds huge inspiration in her pets and often uses them as models, frequently asking Ena, her grey cat, to pose so that she can study her posture and movement.

Then she translates sketches of Ena into characters such as dragons and hares, not to mention moose and bears.

But it was creatures of a wilder kind that inspired her first picture book, Augustus and His Smile - Catherine spent hours and hours watching and sketching tigers in freezing temperatures at Edinburgh Zoo.

Thanks to the generosity of the author herself and South Lanarkshire Council, this event is free.

But contact the library for further information and to reserve a place on 01899 222060.