Garry is an award-winning illustrator of children’s books, including the bestselling The Dinosaur That Pooped series. He and author Gareth Peter are the creators of My Daddies! a picture book about two book-loving dads and their adopted child. Garry lives in London with his young family and old dog.

My experience of adoption has been wonderful and life changing. My partner and I adopted two boys through Greenwich Adoption Team in South London with our first son arriving in early 2011 aged 14 months and our second boy joining the family in 2013 aged nine months. 

As a young gay man living through the era of Clause 28, becoming a father seemed like an impossibility, so to be parenting two children is a miracle I feel very grateful for.

We have an incredible bond between us which consistently confirms to me that being a father is a quality found within you and not something that requires you to be a birth parent. There is no doubt between us that we are a family and this is something I feel I want to express passionately.

Diverse families exist everywhere and should be recognised and celebrated. As an illustrator I was fortunate to be asked to collaborate on a book which featured a family of two dads and their adopted daughter. Being given a chance to draw on my own experience as an adoptive parent and articulate the joys of family life in a picture book was delightful on a personal level but I also believe it is vitally important for children from diverse families to see themselves represented in the world.

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