Deirdre McDermott Obituary

Deirdre McDermott, who died aged 60 from cancer, shaped Walker Books’ picture-book list for a quarter-century, first as a designer and then, from 2002, as publisher. Joining the London firm from Dublin in 1989, she helped create the original layouts for Martin Waddell and Patrick Benson’s Owl Babies, which has sold more than 6.2 million copies. She later published work by leading creators including Helen Oxenbury and Michael Rosen, and became known for discovering emerging talent. Among her recent finds were Flavia Z Drago, Forest Xiao, whose Seven Babies won the 2026 Klaus Flugge prize, and Chloe Savage, whose work received a 2024 Waterstones children’s-book award.

McDermott prized stories that very young children could follow before they could read, and illustrations that conveyed emotion clearly through expressive characters, colour and carefully judged space. She believed characters needed agency and authentic responses because children absorb stories as models for how to be. She saw publishing as a vocation: protecting the time and care needed to make books against commercial pressure, while shaping the relationship between words and pictures by reading texts aloud and editing for sound and meaning. Her list earned major recognition, including six Carnegie Medals for illustration during her tenure. She also helped bring international work to new readers through a literacy partnership with the Chen Yet-Sen Family Foundation in Hong Kong.