by Alan Quick

THE death has been announced of former Crediton area children’s author and illustrator Dame Babette Cole.

Ron Johns, her publisher at Mabercron Books, confirmed that Babette passed away aged 67, in hospital on Saturday, January 14, after being admitted the previous week with a collapsed lung.

Born in 1950, she was creator of picture books and was best known for “Princess Smartypants”, first published in 1986, which was a feminist retelling of a traditional fairy tale romance.

Her other books included “Mummy Laid an Egg!”, “The Smelly Book” and “The Trouble With Mum”.

In 2014 she released “The Wild West Country Tale of James Rabbit and the Giggleberries”, which was based on her “muse” James Gutans, with Johns’ publishing imprint, Mabercron Books.

Johns, who also owns a mini-chain of bookshops including the Falmouth Bookseller and the Padstow Bookseller, said Babette was a “delightful person” and a “comic genius”.

He added: “In some ways she was as mad as a box of frogs but always very professional.

“She always submitted her artwork on time. She was completely irreverent and loved challenging authority.”

Several authors and illustrator colleagues have paid tribute to Dame Babette on social media.

Locally she held book signings at Crediton Community Bookshop and also opened Down St Mary Village Fete.

In the summer of 2015 she was injured in a cow stampede at her home near Crediton which left her with fractured shoulders and ribs.