Walker Books Company Profile

The best ideas are often simple ones, and Walker Books’ founder, Sebastian Walker, had a simple vision for the company: a publisher dedicated to creating the best stories and pictures for children everywhere. “All that counts,” he said, “is that a child says at the end of the book, ‘Again!’”

Sebastian created Walker Books with colleagues Amelia Edwards and Wendy Boase in a spare bedroom. From those small beginnings, with just 18 books in 1980, we now create over 300 books per year.

We outgrew the spare bedroom years back, but we still have Sebastian’s ethos at heart and continue to be Britain’s leading independent
children’s book publisher. We’ve also spread our wings, establishing a sister company, Candlewick Press, in the US in 1992 and Walker Books Australia in 1993.

Walker wouldn’t be Walker without the very best children's authors and artists: Allan Ahlberg, Jez Alborough, Lucy Cousins, Polly Dunbar, Martin Handford, Anthony Horowitz, Shirley Hughes, Jill Murphy, Helen Oxenbury, Mal Peet, Michael Rosen and Martin Waddell are just a few! It’s impossible to list all our stars here, so take a peek at our  Authors and Artists gallery for more.