Jonna Björnstjerna has been scaring children since 2007 with her books about ghosts, trolls, monsters and whatever else goes bump in the night.

Her best-known work is the picture book series The Dark Tales of Lillebror Rabbit, which has been translated into several languages and received recognition from both readers and critics. Her debut picture book, The Monster in the Woods, won Bokjuryn in 2007, and in 2010 the follow-up The Gobbler received the same award. Later titles, including The Ghost Train and The Spaceship, have also been awarded prizes by local chapters of Bokjuryn.

In 2019 she and Josefin Johansson received the Carl von Linné Prize for their book Drottningsylt, and in 2024 Jonna was honoured with the Ottilia Adelborg Prize for her complete artistic body of work. Her stories have been adapted for theatre, used in nurseries and schools as inspiration for creative play and storytelling, and twice brought to television in the program Lässugen (The Frightful Witch and The Kraken).

Most often it is Lillebror Rabbit who finds himself in the middle of her eerie adventures, but sometimes Jonna’s stories follow human characters too. In addition to creating her own tales, she also illustrates books for other authors.

Jonna studied illustration and graphic design at Central Saint Martins in London, and before that comic art and graphic novels at Serieskolan in Malmö.

An anglophile at heart, she has made the UK her home for more than a decade. After many years in London, she moved to Bristol in 2019, where she now lives with her husband Ben, her two children, and Elmo the dog.