Shirley Hughes, the children's author and illustrator, has died at the age of 94, her family has announced.

She was best known for her much-loved books in the Alfie series, about a boy called Alfie and his little sister Annie Rose – as well as children’s picture book Dogger.

A statement to the PA News Agency said that she died “peacefully at home after a short illness on Friday 25th February 2022”.

Her beloved children’s book Dogger, first published in 1977 about a little boy who loses his stuffed dog toy, went on to win her the Kate Greenaway Medal, which its website says is awarded for “an outstanding book in terms of illustration for children and young people”.

It was an achievement that Hughes would obtain again, winning the prize a second time for Ella’s Big Chance, a reimagining of Cinderella, in 2003.

County Times: An illustration of Alfie by Shirley Hughes (Shirley Hughes/PA)An illustration of Alfie by Shirley Hughes (Shirley Hughes/PA)

Throughout her career, she illustrated some 200 children’s books and accrued lifetime sales surpassing more than 10 million copies of her books.

She was appointed a CBE in 2017 for her services to Children’s Literature, having been made an OBE in 1999.

Another first in her career was being awarded the inaugural BookTrust Lifetime Achievement award in 2015 by a judging panel that included some of her celebrated colleagues from the literary world, including Sir Michael Morpurgo and Malorie Blackman.

She said of the accolade at the time: “Being chosen for the BookTrust Lifetime Achievement Award is a tremendous honour which I appreciate more than I can say. I have derived so much fulfilment from my long career, first as an illustrator of other artists’ stories and then creating my own.

“Best of all has been perennially encountering very young children who are learning to look with such rapt pleasure and follow a story visually long before they are able to read.”