The Story of Portraits
Published on 11. September 2025
Book
Hardback
88 pages
978-1-4451-9075-4 (ISBN)
Description
An inspiring introduction to art history, telling the stories of the world's greatest portraits, the artists and their sitters from Picasso to Cindy Sherman
The Story of Portraits begins with an ivory sculpture of a female head carved during the last ice age, and takes the reader through to the modern day, with iconic photos, including the first ever photographic selfie, and sculpture. Mick Manning and Brita Granstroem take you on a tour of their personally selected gallery which showcases the work of some of the world's most famous portrait artists and a few less well-known ones. The artists featured include Rembrandt, Picasso, da Vinci, Vermeer, Kahlo, Klimt, Sekoto, Warhol and more ... The friendly text and illustrations help children to appreciate the art, highlighting interesting biographical details and picking out key details to spot. The book's large format means the art is reproduced on a wonderfully impactful scale. This really is a book to treasure.
The creative team of Mick Manning and Brita Granstroem are well-known for their ground breaking children's information books. Their many awards range the TES Information Book Award for What's Under the Bed? and the English Association Non-fiction award for Charlie's War Illustrated.
The Story of Portraits begins with an ivory sculpture of a female head carved during the last ice age, and takes the reader through to the modern day, with iconic photos, including the first ever photographic selfie, and sculpture. Mick Manning and Brita Granstroem take you on a tour of their personally selected gallery which showcases the work of some of the world's most famous portrait artists and a few less well-known ones. The artists featured include Rembrandt, Picasso, da Vinci, Vermeer, Kahlo, Klimt, Sekoto, Warhol and more ... The friendly text and illustrations help children to appreciate the art, highlighting interesting biographical details and picking out key details to spot. The book's large format means the art is reproduced on a wonderfully impactful scale. This really is a book to treasure.
The creative team of Mick Manning and Brita Granstroem are well-known for their ground breaking children's information books. Their many awards range the TES Information Book Award for What's Under the Bed? and the English Association Non-fiction award for Charlie's War Illustrated.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Hachette Children's Group
Target group
Children/juvenile
Interest Age: From 7 to 9 years
Product notice
Trade binding
Dimensions
Height: 302 mm
Width: 245 mm
Thickness: 13 mm
Weight
682 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4451-9075-4 (9781445190754)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Mick Manning (born in Yorkshire, England, 1959) and Brita Granstroem (born in Eskilstuna, Sweden, 1969) work together as a team sharing the illustration and text. They have been producing award-winning non-fiction picture books for almost twenty years. They show that the best non-fiction for children can be scholarly, albeit with a light touch, and can have some of the imagination-stretching qualities of fiction.
They are well known for their exciting performances involving readings and live drawing using overhead camera projection (often involving participation from members of the audience) all mixed with an audio-visual presentation. They appear on a regular basis at major UK book festival venues such as Bath, Cheltenham and Edinburgh International Book Festival. They have appeared at The Royal Society Science Festival and have celebrated The Big Draw at various venues including The Imperial War Museum.
They have worked closely to support libraries and schools, performing voluntarily to school classes in the UK and Sweden and have also attended the American Library Conference and visited US schools.
Many of Manning & Granstroem's books are translated into a number of languages, including Chinese, German, Greek, Danish, Japanese, Norwegian, Swedish and Slovakian.
For the last 12 years Mick & Brita have created, written and illustrated a monthly 5-page gentle pre-school series called 'Max and Kate' for the critically acclaimed US children's magazine Ladybug.
http://www.mickandbrita.com
Selection of Franklin Watts books:
The World Is Full of Babies! (Smarties Silver Award Winner); What's under the Bed? (TES Award Winner); Wash, Scrub, and Brush (English Association Award KS1 Winner); Stone Age, Bone Age and many other Wonderwise titles; How Did I Begin? (Rhone Poulenc Science prize winner); How Should I Behave?; Seaside Scientist; My Body Book; My Uncle's Dunkirk; Charlie's War Illustrated (English Association Award KS2 Winner); The Story of Britain; The Brontes - Children of the Moors.
Mick Manning (born in Yorkshire, England, 1959) and Brita Granstroem (born in Eskilstuna, Sweden, 1969) work together as a team sharing the illustration and text. They have been producing award-winning non-fiction picture books for almost twenty years. They show that the best non-fiction for children can be scholarly, albeit with a light touch, and can have some of the imagination-stretching qualities of fiction.
They are well known for their exciting performances involving readings and live drawing using overhead camera projection (often involving participation from members of the audience) all mixed with an audio-visual presentation. They appear on a regular basis at major UK book festival venues such as Bath, Cheltenham and Edinburgh International Book Festival. They have appeared at The Royal Society Science Festival and have celebrated The Big Draw at various venues including The Imperial War Museum.
They have worked closely to support libraries and schools, performing voluntarily to school classes in the UK and Sweden and have also attended the American Library Conference and visited US schools.
Many of Manning & Granstroem's books are translated into a number of languages, including Chinese, German, Greek, Danish, Japanese, Norwegian, Swedish and Slovakian.
For the last 12 years Mick & Brita have created, written and illustrated a monthly 5-page gentle pre-school series called 'Max and Kate' for the critically acclaimed US children's magazine Ladybug.
http://www.mickandbrita.com
Selection of Franklin Watts books:
The World Is Full of Babies! (Smarties Silver Award Winner); What's under the Bed? (TES Award Winner); Wash, Scrub, and Brush (English Association Award KS1 Winner); Stone Age, Bone Age and many other Wonderwise titles; How Did I Begin? (Rhone Poulenc Science prize winner); How Should I Behave?; Seaside Scientist; My Body Book; My Uncle's Dunkirk; Charlie's War Illustrated (English Association Award KS2 Winner); The Story of Britain; The Brontes - Children of the Moors.
They are well known for their exciting performances involving readings and live drawing using overhead camera projection (often involving participation from members of the audience) all mixed with an audio-visual presentation. They appear on a regular basis at major UK book festival venues such as Bath, Cheltenham and Edinburgh International Book Festival. They have appeared at The Royal Society Science Festival and have celebrated The Big Draw at various venues including The Imperial War Museum.
They have worked closely to support libraries and schools, performing voluntarily to school classes in the UK and Sweden and have also attended the American Library Conference and visited US schools.
Many of Manning & Granstroem's books are translated into a number of languages, including Chinese, German, Greek, Danish, Japanese, Norwegian, Swedish and Slovakian.
For the last 12 years Mick & Brita have created, written and illustrated a monthly 5-page gentle pre-school series called 'Max and Kate' for the critically acclaimed US children's magazine Ladybug.
http://www.mickandbrita.com
Selection of Franklin Watts books:
The World Is Full of Babies! (Smarties Silver Award Winner); What's under the Bed? (TES Award Winner); Wash, Scrub, and Brush (English Association Award KS1 Winner); Stone Age, Bone Age and many other Wonderwise titles; How Did I Begin? (Rhone Poulenc Science prize winner); How Should I Behave?; Seaside Scientist; My Body Book; My Uncle's Dunkirk; Charlie's War Illustrated (English Association Award KS2 Winner); The Story of Britain; The Brontes - Children of the Moors.
Mick Manning (born in Yorkshire, England, 1959) and Brita Granstroem (born in Eskilstuna, Sweden, 1969) work together as a team sharing the illustration and text. They have been producing award-winning non-fiction picture books for almost twenty years. They show that the best non-fiction for children can be scholarly, albeit with a light touch, and can have some of the imagination-stretching qualities of fiction.
They are well known for their exciting performances involving readings and live drawing using overhead camera projection (often involving participation from members of the audience) all mixed with an audio-visual presentation. They appear on a regular basis at major UK book festival venues such as Bath, Cheltenham and Edinburgh International Book Festival. They have appeared at The Royal Society Science Festival and have celebrated The Big Draw at various venues including The Imperial War Museum.
They have worked closely to support libraries and schools, performing voluntarily to school classes in the UK and Sweden and have also attended the American Library Conference and visited US schools.
Many of Manning & Granstroem's books are translated into a number of languages, including Chinese, German, Greek, Danish, Japanese, Norwegian, Swedish and Slovakian.
For the last 12 years Mick & Brita have created, written and illustrated a monthly 5-page gentle pre-school series called 'Max and Kate' for the critically acclaimed US children's magazine Ladybug.
http://www.mickandbrita.com
Selection of Franklin Watts books:
The World Is Full of Babies! (Smarties Silver Award Winner); What's under the Bed? (TES Award Winner); Wash, Scrub, and Brush (English Association Award KS1 Winner); Stone Age, Bone Age and many other Wonderwise titles; How Did I Begin? (Rhone Poulenc Science prize winner); How Should I Behave?; Seaside Scientist; My Body Book; My Uncle's Dunkirk; Charlie's War Illustrated (English Association Award KS2 Winner); The Story of Britain; The Brontes - Children of the Moors.