Mike Barfield has been wild about the natural world from an early age. His love of nature took him to King’s College London where he gained a first class honours degree in botany and zoology. After a career in comedy writing for TV and radio, he turned to creating award-winning non-fiction for children built on his love of science and finding things out. He is the winner of the Blue Peter Children’s Book Award 2021 in the ‘Best Book with Facts’ category, and has also been shortlisted for the Royal Society Young People's Book Prize, the Association for Science Education Children’s Book Prize (twice) and the De Bary Award for Outstanding Children’s Science Books (twice). is an award-winning writer, cartoonist, poet and performer. Internationally popular, he writes and creates funny non-fiction and activity books for young people, published in over 30 different languages. His cartoon feature 'Apparently' has been running in the pages of Private Eye for many years, while his drawings have been displayed in the V&A Museum, London's Cartoon Museum, and Nigella Lawson's downstairs toilet.
When not busy writing and drawing, Mike performs family-friendly fun-filled shows at schools, libraries and festivals across the country. He has been wild about science and animals from an early age.