People like Graham Oakley

Graham Thomas Oakley (27 August 1929 – 19 December 2022) was an English writer and illustrator best known for children's books.

Oakley was born to Thomas and Flora (Madelay) Oakley in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England.

Oakley attended the Warrington Art School in 1950. He worked for London repertory theatre companies as a scenic artist from 1950 to 1955; as a design assistant at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, 1955 to 1957; at Crawford's Advertising Agency, 1960 to 1962; at BBC-TV as a set designer for films and series, 1962 to 1967. At BBC he worked on How Green Was My Valley, Nicholas Nickleby, Treasure Island, and Softly, Softly.

Oakley is best known for the Church Mice series of picture books (1970 to 2000), next for the Foxbury Force series (1994 to 1998). He also won a Boston Globe–Horn Book Award Special Citation in 1980 for the picture book Graham Oakley's Magical Changes. It features detailed scenes drawn on pages that are cut in half, permitting the user to "turn" the top and bottom halves separately. The combinations are surreal; the original whole-page drawings are already strange. In 2001 it was republished in France, entitled 512 for the number of different combinations possible.