François Place

François Place is one of France’s best-loved children’s book authors and illustrators. He was born in 1957 in France, and lives near Paris, where he studied Graphic Art at the École Estienne. Some of his first published works was a series of non-fiction books about travel and the discovery of the world published by Éditions Casterman in France which included L’Atlas des Géographes d’Orbæ.

In 1992, he published his first children’s book Les Derniers Géants about an intrepid explorer who discovers a forgotten tribe of giants. He lives amongst them for 10 months, but on returning to his own country makes the fatal mistake of revealing his discovery to the world… The book won a number of prestigious prizes in France including the Grand Prix du Livre de Jeunesse de la Société des Gens de Lettres and the Prix Sorcières and was included in the Honours List of IBBY France. It was translated into English by William Rodarmor and published in the USA by David R Godine Publisher in 2018 as The Last Giants.

François has also illustrated many novels, most notably War Horse by Michael Morpurgo as well as countless other fiction and non-fiction books which are often about travel and different cultures. His beautiful work is regularly exhibited at the À La Page Gallery.

You can see François' beautiful contribution to our What Makes You Smile? project here.