Mike Smith graduated with distinction from the MA Children's Book Illustration course at Cambridge School of Art, Anglia Ruskin University. In 2010 he won the Macmillan Prize for Children's Picture Book Illustration, having been a runner-up the year before. When he was a child, Mike's favourite illustrators were Herge, Charles Schultz and Richard Scarry, all of whom still influence his work today. Mike and his partner Caroline lived on a canal boat in Cambridge for seven years, but they have now swapped their boat for a house in Leicestershire, where they live happily with their two sons and their dogs. THE HUNDRED DECKER BUS is Mike's debut picture book.