Day War Came

Nicola Davies is a multi-award-winning author and Children's Laureate Wales 2025-27. Her many books for children include A First Book of Nature, Lots, The Promise and One World. She graduated in zoology, studied whales and bats and then worked for the BBC Natural History Unit, eventually becoming one of the original presenters of The Really Wild Show. She was the first ever recipient of the SLA’s Award for Outstanding Contribution to Information Books. Rebecca Cobb grew up surrounded by coloured pencils, felt pens, wax crayons, poster paints and pieces of paper. She studied illustration at Falmouth College of Arts and has been living in Falmouth and working as an author and illustrator ever since. As well as illustrating her own picture books, Rebecca has also illustrated works by authors including Helen Dunmore, Julia Donaldson, Richard Curtis, Nicola Davies, Katherine Woodfine and Mariesa Dulak. Rebecca has won the Waterstones Children’s Picture Book Prize, Peters Picture Book award, the InspiREAD Picture book award, and she has been shortlisted for the prestigious CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal three times. Find her online at rebeccacobb.co.uk, on Instagram as @rebecca_a_cobb or on X as @rebecca_cobb.

“In a wholly different register, The Day War Came combines Nicola Davies’s simple, hard-hitting text and Rebecca Cobb’s pencil drawings to evoke the destruction of everyday reality for the youngest victims of conflict. Thought-provoking and poignant, it’s an excellent answer to the question of how to talk to children about war.”