Templar Books, an imprint of Bonnier Books UK, is delighted to announce the eagerly anticipated acquisition of bestselling author Andy Shepherd’s debut picture book, The Boy Who Grew Dragons: A Christmas Delivery illustrated by Sarah Warburton. The heartwarming picture book captures all the magic and mayhem of Andy’s award-winning middle-grade series The Boy Who Grew Dragons for a younger audience.
Sophie Hallam, publishing director, acquired world rights for two picture books by Andy Shepherd from Jo Williamson of Antony Harwood Literary Agency. A Christmas Delivery publishes October 2025 in hardback, with another title to follow in 2027. World illustration rights were acquired from Jessica Hare of The Agency.
Shortlisted for Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2019 and longlisted for the Blue Peter Book Awards 2019, The Boy Who Grew Dragons is an international success and has now sold over 500,000 copies worldwide. With her debut picture book, Andy brings the same characters to life in a new format that will delight readers big and small, illustrated in charm and style by acclaimed illustrator Sarah Warburton.
Tomas, Lolli, and Grandad tackle a brand-new snow dragon that transforms their garden into a winter wonderland and leaves them with SO much snow that they’ll never make their Christmas present deliveries. They must work together with the dragons to save Christmas and spread a little magic. Perfectly timed for the festive season, this hug of a book will make a perfect gift.
Andy Shepherd said: “I’m beyond thrilled that The Boy Who Grew Dragons: A Christmas Delivery is going to be flying out into the world. It’s been wonderful working with the team at Templar who have shown such excitement and love for these characters. And I am so delighted that the incredible Sarah Warburton is illustrating the story. I’ve always admired her work and absolutely love her illustrations for this book. They are utterly glorious and magical, bringing all the warmth, fun and sparkly charm I could wish for. I definitely got all the tingles seeing them!
The idea of a boy growing dragons at the bottom of his grandad’s garden was an idea I had eleven years ago. Before developing the fiction series I toyed with the idea of a picture book, always imagining how glorious it could be. So to see it finally here is a dream come true! I hope that readers new and old will love seeing the characters come to life in this exciting picture world as much as I have.”
Sarah Warburton shared: “Dragons, snow and Christmas? On reading this story with my illustrator head on, this was an immediate visual feast. I’ve always been attracted to the power of light in illustrations – strong sunlight, warm and glowing-coloured lights, shadows and magic. After absorbing Andy’s stories and characters I felt drawn into the suburban, small-dragon and dragon-tree universe and I wanted to stay there. I felt like I’d stopped to take a pause and daydreamed myself back to the excitement of fireworks and sparklers on a winter’s night. Priceless. Not many storytellers have that skill.”
Publishing director Sophie Hallam said: “Building on the success of Andy’s beloved middle-grade series, we’re absolutely delighted to be bringing Tomas, Lolli and their world of dragons to a younger audience. Bursting with festive cheer, a sleigh full of dragon-sized surprises and plenty of flaming good fun, this heartwarming story will have readers soaring with excitement all season long!”
Andy Shepherd grew up on the Essex coast and spent most of her time scribbling stories and messing about in boats and mud. She has written six books in ‘The Boy Who Grew Dragons’ series which has been translated into 25 languages so far. The first book in a brand-new middle grade series ‘The Wood Where Magic Grows’, illustrated by Ellie Snowdon, will be published by Piccadilly Press in June 2025. She now lives near Cambridge with her husband, two sons and a house full of tiny dragons. She firmly believes in looking for the magic on our doorsteps.
Sarah Warburton grew up on an island, Anglesey, in North Wales. She learnt to speak Welsh at school and can easily say the famous place name Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch as she used to live there. Sarah studied Illustration at the University of the West of England in Bristol, graduating in 1994. She has been illustrating professionally for nearly 30 years. Starting off illustrating school textbooks and school reading schemes, she eventually moved on to working with authors such as Caryl Hart (The Princess series and Peter Pan), Timothy Knapman (Dinosaurs in the Supermarket), Dominic Valente (the Starfell series) and more recently Ross Montgomery (Ten Delicious Teachers and Penguin Huddle) and Lu Fraser (One Camel Called Doug and Mavis the Bravest). Sarah now lives in Bristol, is married and has two (sort of) grown-up children (19 and 16), an anxious border terrier called Ivor and a large pond full of frogs.
The Boy Who Grew Dragons: A Christmas Delivery by Andy Shepherd, illustrated by Sarah Warburton is published in hardback October 2025, followed by the paperback in October 2026. Andy’s second picture book will publish in 2027.
