Mini Grey, author portrait
© David Fleming

Mini Grey

Mini was born in the front seat of a mini-car in an icy car-park in South Wales. She has two sisters and one brother, and grew up in a village in Buckinghamshire with plenty of places to make camps, climb trees and pretend to be horses. As a child Mini believed no day should pass without making something and created many bizarre objects from cardboard, clay, papier mache, dough, plaster, toilet rolls and crisp packets.

After school Mini did a foundation Course in Art, but knew she wasn’t cut out to be a Fine Artist, so did an English degree at University College London. While she was there she became involved with set-building at the Bloomsbury theatre and eventually got asked to design some shows. After finishing her degree Mini worked making latex puppets in a basement in Covent Garden until she was offered a place on a theatre design course. Mini loved theatre designing because she got to make lots of models — and also real things, and paint backdrops, and create costumes. However, she did not earn much money. She trained to be a teacher and worked for six years in South London. She especially liked running after-school clubs in model-making and pottery.

Mini had always done bits of illustration in her spare time, and had an ambition to have a book published some day. She did a two-year MA in illustration, and made a strange pop-up book and an animation about it.
Mini has had four books published so far; The Pea and The Princess was shortlisted for the Greenaway Award in 2204, and her third book, Biscuit Bear, won the Smarties Prize in 2004.

Mini lives in Oxford with her partner Tony and cat Bonzetta. She likes running along the river, cycling, walking up hills, running down corridors, and playing badly on her electric piano wearing headphones.
The Children of Noisy Village
Space Dog
Hermelin the Detective Mouse
Toys in Space
Egg Drop
Traction Man and the Beach Odyssey
The Very Smart Pea and the Princess-to-be
Three by the Sea
Ginger Bear
Traction Man Is Here!
Traction Man Meets Turbo Dog
Into the Woods

Books

The Children of Noisy Village
Space Dog
Hermelin the Detective Mouse
Toys in Space
Egg Drop
Traction Man and the Beach Odyssey
The Very Smart Pea and the Princess-to-be
Three by the Sea
Ginger Bear
Traction Man Is Here!
Traction Man Meets Turbo Dog
Into the Woods

Reading with Purpose Summit Event

On Monday, June 10th, Penguin Random House Education and DK Learning co-hosted a Reading with Purpose Summit Event in collaboration with Molly Ness, PhD. The event took place at Penguin Random House’s NYC headquarters and included sessions featuring leading education experts and a lunchtime author panel. The in-person professional learning event was built to show

Read more

DK Learning Phonic Books Sampler Request

Thank you for your interest in DK Learning | Phonic Books. To download the DK Learning | Phonic Books sampler with four complete readers, please click here and complete the form. Once your information is successfully submitted, a link to download the sampler will be provided on the confirmation screen.   Click here to learn

Read more

2024 Elementary School Collection

The Penguin Random House Education Elementary School Collection features outstanding fiction, nonfiction, and picture books from Penguin Young Reader’s, Random House Children’s, DK, and Grupo Editorial, as well as children’s publishers distributed by Penguin Random House. Explore online or download this valuable resource to discover great books in specific topic areas such as: Leveled Readers,

Read more

PRH Education Translanguaging Collections

Translanguaging is a communicative practice of bilinguals and multilinguals, that is, it is a practice whereby bilinguals and multilinguals use their entire linguistic repertoire to communicate and make meaning (García, 2009; García, Ibarra Johnson, & Seltzer, 2017)   It is through that lens that we have partnered with teacher educators and bilingual education experts, Drs.

Read more