Life at Extremes (4-Book Series)
Publisher: Hachette Children's Group (Imprint: Franklin Watts)
Publication Dates: Published across 2022–2024 (Titles released sequentially)
Author & Illustrator: Josy Bloggs
From Concept to Creation
Life at Extremes is a project very close to my heart because it marks a major milestone in my creative journey. I didn't just illustrate this four-book series—I conceived, researched, wrote, and pitched the entire concept from scratch.
Driven by my lifelong passion for the natural world, I wanted to create an immersive, visually captivating experience that would help young minds engage with our planet's most challenging landscapes. After meticulously researching the subject matter and building a comprehensive submission pitch, the series was successfully taken up and published by the team at Hachette Children's Group.
About the Series
Geared toward budding explorers aged 9 and up, the series dives deep into environments where conditions are pushed to the absolute limit. Each book explores how these environments formed, how unique wildlife adapts to survive, and how human engineering allows us to live and work in such harsh conditions. Crucially, the books also look at how human activity impacts these fragile ecosystems and what the future holds for them.
Books in the series:
Life at Extremes: Underground (2022) – Digging deep beneath our feet to uncover hidden caves, subterranean wildlife, and communities that live entirely underground.
Life at Extremes: The Poles (2023) – An icy exploration comparing and contrasting the hostile, beautiful landscapes of the Arctic and Antarctic.
Life at Extremes: Under the Sea (2024) – A journey into the pitch-black depths of our oceans, discovering creatures that thrive under crushing pressure.
Life at Extremes: Space (2024) – Looking beyond Earth to explore how humans manage to survive the ultimate vacuum of space and what future colonies might look like.
For art buyers and publishers looking at my portfolio, this series demonstrates my ability to handle full-circle creative direction. I can take a complex STEM topic from its initial seed of an idea, develop the editorial narrative, conduct deep subject research, and execute the final high-quality, vibrant artwork.