Piotr Karski

(b. 1987) – a creator of educational picture books for children.

He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, in the Book Design Studio headed by Maciej Buszewicz and the Publishing Graphic Studio of Lech Majewski. He has worked with Dwie Siostry publishers as a graphic designer.

The books from the Tutu series support sensory development [‘Co to? Tutu i dźwięki’ (What’s That? Tutu and Sounds)], learning about parts of the world [‘Złapię cię! Tutu i pojazdy’ (I’ll Catch You! Tutu and Vehicles)] and awareness of individual identity [‘Kim jestem? Tutu i zwierzęta’ (Who Am I? Tutu and the Animals)]. Made up of exercises and infographics, the drawing handbooks ‘W góry!’ (Upward!) and ‘W morze!’ (Seaward!) are an exciting source of knowledge about the natural world and aim to stoke curiosity about the world and sensitise young readers to their surroundings. The ‘Pionierzy’ (Pioneers) lexicon, to which Karski contributed some illustrations, teaches readers about Poland’s most famous inventors and explorers.

Both of Karski’s series, as well as the aforementioned collective project, have been translated  into a host of foreign languages. For its text and illustrations, Pioneers was nominated for the City of Warsaw Literary Award and the Awards for Best Children’s Book 2013 at the Festival of Children’s Literature in Warsaw, Krakow and Wrocław, while the Chinese edition of the book was a finalist in 2025 in the Golden Windmill Competition for Young Illustrators (童书展和金风车国际青年插画大赛) at the Chinese Book Fair for Children in Shanghai. Upward! Was singled out by Gazeta Górska in the Best Books about Mountains Competition 2016 and was nominated for Wise Book of the Year 2016 and Wissenschaftsbuch des Jahres 2018 (Austria). Seaward! took the grand prix in the Most Beautiful Books of the Year 2017 competition held by the Polish Book Publishers’ Society, in the Books for Children and Young Adults category, and the Dapeng Nature Children’s Book Award in the Creativity category (China, 2018), and was nominated for the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis (Germany, 2020). For I’ll Catch You! Karski received mentions in the book for very young readers competition of the BolognaRagazzi Award at the Book Fair for Children in Bologna (Italy) in 2024.

For more on the work of Piotr Karski, see here.