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The Team
Rob McCann
Managing Director & Head of Sales
Rob was once a reluctant reader, but everything changed when he stumbled upon the enchanting worlds crafted by Roald Dahl and the spine-tingling tales of the Goosebumps series. Now, he loves sharing his passion for books with his own children and his class. With 18 years of teaching experience, including a recent role coordinating English across two schools, Rob is currently a part-time Assistant Headteacher. He is passionate about supporting schools in acquiring high quality books at an amazing value. His favourite recent reads include The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Rauf and the Aveline Jones series by Phil Hickes. He firmly believes in Reading for Pleasure and how books can be transformative.
Krystal McCann
Head of Marketing
Krystal has been a teacher for over 17 years in Primary Schools in Lincolnshire. Her childhood love for reading has influenced her passion and drive for inspiring children to read. She favours novels with spooky, dystopian or witchcraft themes. Her favourite authors are: Margaret Atwood, Finbar Hawkins and Matt Haig.
Tara Cross
Marketing Co-ordinator
Tara is in her fifth year of teaching at a small, rural primary school in Suffolk. She is a passionate reading lead, caring deeply about reading for pleasure which she loves to share with the children at her school and with fellow teachers on Instagram. On Instagram she hosts book photo challenges, posts reviews of all the children’s books she’s read and enjoys sharing her love for teaching and all things reading! Tara has always been an avid reader and wants to inspire children to enjoy reading as much as she did as a child (and still does now!)
Hannah Gold
VIP Reading Ambassador
Hannah is the author of The Last Bear, The Lost Whale, Finding Bear and her latest book, Turtle Moon. The Last Bear became an inspirational, international bestseller on release and was the winner of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and the Blue Peter Book Award; and The Lost Whale was the winner of the Edward Stanford Children’s Travel Book of the Year. Her books have sold over 300,000 copies alone in the UK and been translated into twenty-seven languages.
She grew up in a family where books, animals and the beauty of the outside world were ever present and is passionate about writing stories that share her love of the planet. Hannah is also an ambassador for Whale and Dolphin Conservation and lives in the UK.
Chris White
VIP Reading Illustrator
Chris White is a writer. Illustrator and performance poet. He has sold thousands of books world-wide due to constant appearances at festivals, schools and libraries across the globe. He has had many poetry and story books published since his first, ‘Bitey the Veggie Vampire’, in 2000. As well as scribbling pictures to accompany his own work, Chris illustrates for other authors too., including Brian Moses, Joshua Seigal and Neal Zetter. His latest book is ‘The A to Z of Completely Made Up Dinosaurs.’ Chris has featured at many literary festivals , including The Edinburgh Fringe, The Edinburgh Book Festival, The Doha Book Festival and The Cheltenham Book Festival. Chris has inspired countless children to be creative and write their own stories, poems and pick up a pencil and start scribbling their own illustrations. Chris has had his poems and pictures broadcast on BBC TV and radio, and worked for the British government and the British Council on various projects.
Ben Morgan
VIP Reading Resource Creator
Ben Morgan has been teaching for over 8 years across KS1 and now in EYFS. He has always had a passion for reading, however he got into reading kid lit after discovering Brightstorm by Vashti Hardy. He may not be the quickest reader, but you can certainly always find him reading a book!
Onjali Rauf
VIP Reading Ambassador from 2019 – 2025
Onjali Q. Raúf is an award winning and best selling children’s author and activist. Her books are especially noteworthy for helping the children of today understand and deal with a range of issues in a narrative that they can relate to in an engaging way. Her debut book, The Boy at the Back of the Class, was met with critical acclaim whose awards include the 2019 Blue Peter Book Award and Waterstones Children’s Book Prize. She has supported VIP Reading from the very beginning and is a very active patron of the company.
Rachel Sanson
VIP Reading Illustrator from 2022 – 2024
Rachel Sanson is an illustrator of children’s books and is currently based in Bristol, UK. Originally from a tiny town in the North of England, she graduated from the University of Lincoln with a degree in illustration after 3 years in a little studio perched on the top of a very steep hill. Rachel loves to work on children’s fiction and enjoys illustrating weird and wonderful characters and the worlds they live in. Rachel’s past work includes the Topsea middle grade novel series and the Tails from History educational book series. From this, A Sea Otter to the Rescue received the Gold Standard Selection Award from the Junior Library Guild in 2019. Rachel’s first picture book, The Lady of the Library was published in 2021 by Sleeping Bear Press.
Steven Lenton
VIP illustrator from 2020 – 2022
Steven Lenton was the VIP Reading illustrator for 2 years and in that time produced a number of wonderful illustrations of featured VIP authors, including: Patrice Lawrence, Stewart Foster and Steven Butler. Steven Lenton hails from Cheshire and now works from his studio in Soho, London creating an array of charming characters for his picture books. Best known for illustrating the bestselling Shifty McGifty series written by Tracey Corderoy, Steven has illustrated many lovely book as well as writing and illustrating his own stories.