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Father had taken a few steps forward and then stopped. There was amazement in his wise old eyes, and a deep and shining joy.

“That’s how she looked when I carried her away from her tent,” he said. “Exactly like that!”

Almost unbearably moved, the dignified old yeti walked over to Aggie.

“You’ve come back to us, Lady Agatha,” he said, and bent his head and took the tray from her hands.

And Con and Ellen saw that the story which had begun a hundred years ago in the mountains of Tibet had ended, and that their work was done, and they got into the helicopter and flew away.

About the Illustrator

SHARON RENTTA has always had a passion for drawing and knew from a young age that she wanted to pursue a career in illustration. She grew up in Chester, where she completed a year’s foundation course before doing a BA (Hons) in Graphic Design at the Liverpool John Moore’s University. Afterwards she graduated from the prestigious Cambridge School of Art with an MA in Children’s Book Illustration. Since then, Sharon has written and illustrated six full-colour picture books, and her black-and-white line illustrations in Eva Ibbotson’s ONE DOG AND HIS BOY have attracted widespread acclaim.

Sharon lives in Cambridge with her husband and works in her studio at home. When she is not drawing and painting and making stories, she enjoys reading, pottering about in the garden, an occasional jog and always a good action movie.

Books by Sharon Rentta

Sidney the Little Blue Elephant

Sidney Goes to School

Dogs Go Shopping

A Day with the Animal Doctors

A Day with the Animal Firefighters

A Day with the Animal Builders (coming in 2013)

sharon-rentta.co.uk

Sharon says of illustrating THE ABOMINABLES:

“I was so delighted when I found out that another novel by Eva Ibbotson had been discovered, and even more excited to be asked to illustrate it. When I started to read it, I just couldn’t put it down! I was so captivated by these strange yetis, with their back-to-front feet, whose characters were described and developed with such warmth and humour.

It was a happy, if somewhat big, challenge to try and translate the images of the characters that Eva had created into something visual, appealing and convincing. Who knows what yetis look like? That’s what made this so exciting. My efforts went through many transitions as I attempted to create characters that were both obviously animal and yet also almost human. Their goodness, trust and high morality, as well as their vulnerability and quirkiness, were some of the qualities that I found endearing about them, and are ones that I’ve attempted to convey.

It has been an absolute dream to illustrate this book and I feel very privileged to have made this small contribution to such a wonderful story.”