Picture This 2011

17.09.11: Two years ago Waterstone's discovered a brand new illustrator called Karen George via our first Picture This competition. She won the chance to illustrate a brand new book by Julia Donaldson, Freddie and the Fairy - a dream commission for an undiscovered artist. Freddie and the Fairy went on to become one of our bestselling picture books last Christmas, and is still selling brilliantly. For our second Picture This, in conjunction with The Daily Telegraph and HarperCollins Children's Books, our customers voted for their favourite fairy tale. This turned out to be Beauty and the Beast, to be rewritten by the incomparable Michael Morpurgo.

Hundreds of aspiring artists sent in their interpretations of the cast of this classic fairy tale, and a panel of judges, including Michael Morpurgo himself, had the difficult task of choosing a winner. "The standard of this second Picture This was even higher than the first," said Watersotne's Kate Skipper. "We took hours deliberating, but believe we have chosen a worthy winner."

All seven shortlisted entrants joined the judges at Waterstone's Piccadilly, to discover who would go on to illustrate the new book from the author of War Horse, Dancing Bear and so many classic children's books. After telling all the shortlisted entrants that he was hugely impressed with all the entries and that they were all "on your way" to being published, Michael named Madeleine Hill of Sydenham as the runner up, and Loretta Schauer of north London as our Picture This 2011 winner. Congratulating her, Michael quipped about being a hard taskmaster, "I look forward to working with you - you won't enjoy it!" We're sure Loretta will though.

Beauty and the Beast by Michael Morpurgo and illustrated by Loretta Schauer will be published in autumn 2012 as a Waterstone's exclusive.

Since the award ceremony, we have also learnt that another finalist, Steven Todd Lenton, has just been signed up by children's publisher Nosy Crow. Congratulations Steven! Click on the names below to see Loretta, Steven's and the other finalists' work.

Elys Dolan    Loretta Schauer     Madeleine Hill    Matthew Robertson

Sophy Henn     Steven Todd Lenton     Tracey Smith

Don't forget, everyone is welcome to share their entries and chat about the competition on our Picture This Flickr page. If you have any queries about the competition, please read the full Terms and Conditions.