Shirley began to write and draw her own picture books when her children were young. Her first book - Lucy and Tom's Day - was published in 1960, and she followed it with, among others, Dogger, and the Alfie series. Her books include the wordless picture book Up and Up, collection of rhymes and poems Out and About, and for the very young The Nursery Collection.
\nShirley Hughes has won the Other Award, the Eleanor Farjeon Award, and the Kate Greenaway Medal for Illustration twice, for Dogger in 1977 and for Ella's Big Chance in 2003. In 2007 Dogger was voted the public's favourite Greenaway winner of all time. She was Highly Commended for the Greenaway Medal for The Lion and the Unicorn in 1998. Shirley received an OBE in 1999 for services to Children's Literature, and a CBE in 2017. She was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was the first recipient of BookTrust's Lifetime Achievement Award. Shirley died in London in 2022.