Jan Thornhill (born 1955 in Sudbury, Ontario) is a Canadian writer and illustrator of educational books on science and nature for children.
[1] She was the 2015 winner of the Vicky Metcalf Award for Literature for Young People, a lifetime achievement award presented by the Writers' Trust of Canada,[2] and won the Norma Fleck Award in 2007 for her book I Found a Dead Bird: The Kids’ Guide to the Cycle of Life & Death.
[3] A graduate of the Ontario College of Art,[4] Thornhill has illustrated many but not all of her own works.
She won UNICEF's Ezra Jack Yeats International Award for illustration in 1990 for The Wildlife 123,[5] and has been a three-time nominee for the Governor General's Award for English-language children's illustration at the 1988 Governor General's Awards for The Wildlife ABC,[6] the 1989 Governor General's Awards for The Wildlife 123[7] and the 2017 Governor General's Awards for The Tragic Tale of the Great Auk.
She has also published the adult short story collection Drought, which was a shortlisted nominee for the ReLit Awards in 2001,[8] and has drawn illustrations for general interest magazines including The Idler.