Team

Genevieve Yusuf – Author

Genevieve was born in Colchester, Essex in 1978. She studied at the University of Sussex and has a degree in Linguistics and Spanish. Writing the books has brought the two of her passions together. She has been a private Spanish tutor to children for many years and picked up along the way, what interests children and what makes them tick!

She noticed that children learn best when they don’t realise they are learning. That is why a fun story is a good way to introduce another language. As part of her degree she studied second language acquisition in children and is aware that introducing a foreign language to a child at an early age is the best for their learning.

Genevieve also volunteers as a writer and proofreader for two local magazines. In her spare time she loves walking in the countryside and being at home with family and pets!

Suzanne Wilson – Illustrator

Suzanne was born in Suffolk in 1968. She trained and worked as both a doctor and solicitor, combining the two fields. She then became a full time mum and now lives in Essex with her husband and three beautiful children. Suzanne has always been passionate about art and drawing with her children. She is now using her talents as an illustrator whilst enjoying doing something she really loves!

Elly Budgen-Jones -Sales and Marketing

Since graduating, Elly has worked in various roles, including running her own company for a number of years. After spending the majority of her time in the UK she moved to France over a year ago with her husband and family. Not only does she have professional experience in her sales and marketing role but she also has her own personal experience of bringing up two boys bilingually, which is why she is so passionate about the JaJaJa ethos.

Shermain Philip – Illustrator

Shermain Philip graduated from UCL with a linguistics degree but has always had an incredible love of art and illustration. Her creativity touches every part of her life, be it in the fine details of her hand sketched illustrations, to her love of being involved in huge projects linked with the Notting Hill Carnival Mas Band management team, where as part of the job, she deals with the wonderful  eye catching costumes.

After working as an Arts officer in 2 different London boroughs for more than 6 years and being involved in events management for a very long time, her world is often surrounded by art and creativity.

To add to her skills, she often produces examples of incredible body art and face painting.

Shermain illustrated ‘Ranvir Cannot Hear’ over a period of 8 months and truly put her heart and soul into each beautiful picture which were handsketched using an Ipad Air and we at JaJaJa are so very happy with what we have created.

Karen Clark – Designer

Karen graduated from Colchester Institute with a Degree in Art & Design, specialising in graphic design. She worked for a couple of large design agencies, both locally and in London, before deciding to start her own business a few years later. Pink Creative was born from a passion of all things design and photography, with Karen’s main love being typography. She switches between working with corporate clients to creating her own typography artwork – a balance that she finds fits perfectly around her hectic family life.
Karen has worked with JaJaJa Books from the beginning, from creating our logo and stationery to designing the layout for our books. Her design skills and understanding of what we always want to achieve are fantastic. She is a crucial member of this team bringing all of the parts together.