Alex Brychta was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to children's literature.
Illustrator of many of the Oxford Reading Tree stories, Alex has developed the style of illustration that has become the trademark of Oxford Reading Tree.
There are always more details than strictly necessary in every picture. Observant children soon notice that a dog is often somewhere in the landscape and that most stories have a pair of spectacles seemingly abandoned in odd locations. Alex tells children a story that explains both these additions:
"I often go to a park where there is a notice saying 'Dogs must be kept on the lead'. I nearly always meet a dog off the lead, so clearly the dog is too short-sighted to read the notice. So I buy old pairs of spectacles from junk shops and when I meet a dog in the park I put a pair of spectacles on him. Of course, he shakes his head and they drop off sooner or later, so that is why there are pairs of spectacles in odd places in my pictures."
