Jessica Souhami performance

Before she became a writer and illustrator, Jessica was a puppeteer. She made shadow puppets and, together with her puppet company Mme Souhami and Co., she travelled around the country bringing to life some of the stories that people have been telling one another for hundreds, and even thousands, of years. In the early 1990s Jessica stopped touring. She still wanted to tell stories but now she wanted to do it through books. Her first book was called The Leopard’s Drum, a story from West Africa. She went on to retell fantastic tales from around the world in her books including Rama and the Demon King, King Pom and the Fox, and Honk! Honk! Hold Tight.