Anne Fine
Though readers often find themselves inadvertently laughing aloud as they read Anne Fine's novels, as she herself admits, "a lot of my work, even for fairly young readers, raises serious social issues. Growing up is a long and confusing business. I try to show that the battle through the chaos is worthwhile and can, at times, be seen as very funny." In 1994, this unique combination of humour and realism inspired the hit movie MRS. DOUBTFIRE, based on Anne's novel MADAME DOUBTFIRE and starring the late comedic genius Robin Williams.
Anne is best known in her home country, England, as a writer principally for children, but over the years she has also written eight novels for adult readers. Seven of these she describes as black - or sour - come
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Jeanne Betancourt
When I was growing up I never thought of being an author. I was a terrible speller and didn't want to write any more than I had to. I wanted to be a tap dancer when I grew up. After a few years of teaching junior high and high school, I wrote my first novel. It was a surprise to discover that I liked making up stories and writing them down. I liked it so much that eventually I stopped teaching and became a fulltime writer.
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Besides novels for children and young adults, I've also told stories by writing scripts for television and the movies.
I live on the top floor of a sixteen-story building near the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. From my apartment I have a view of Manhattan that includes the Empire State Building and the -
Philippa Pearce
Philippa Pearce was an acclaimed English author of children’s literature, best remembered for her classic time-slip novel Tom’s Midnight Garden, which won the 1958 Carnegie Medal and remains a staple of British children’s fiction. Raised in Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire, in the Mill House by the River Cam, Pearce drew lifelong inspiration from her rural upbringing. Educated at the Perse School for Girls and Girton College, Cambridge, she studied English and History before working as a civil servant and later producing schools’ radio programmes for the BBC.
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Her debut, Minnow on the Say (1955), inspired by local landscapes and a childhood canoe trip, was a Carnegie runner-up and later adapted for television. Tom’s Midnight Garden, also rooted -
Ted Hughes
Edward James Hughes was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1984 and held the office until his death. In 2008, The Times ranked Hughes fourth on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
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He married fellow poet Sylvia Plath in 1956, and they lived together in the United States and then in England, in a tumultuous relationship. They had two children before separating in 1962 and Plath ended her own life in 1963. -
Terry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John Pratchett was an English author, humorist, and satirist, best known for the Discworld series of 41 comic fantasy novels published between 1983–2015, and for the apocalyptic comedy novel Good Omens (1990), which he co-wrote with Neil Gaiman.
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Pratchett's first novel, The Carpet People, was published in 1971. The first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983, after which Pratchett wrote an average of two books a year. The final Discworld novel, The Shepherd's Crown, was published in August 2015, five months after his death.
With more than 100 million books sold worldwide in 43 languages, Pratchett was the UK's best-selling author of the 1990s. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Emp -
Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl was a beloved British author, poet, screenwriter, and wartime fighter pilot, best known for his enchanting and often darkly humorous children's books that have captivated generations of readers around the world. Born in Llandaff, Wales, to Norwegian parents, Dahl led a life marked by adventure, tragedy, creativity, and enduring literary success. His vivid imagination and distinctive storytelling style have made him one of the most celebrated children's authors in modern literature.
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Before becoming a writer, Dahl lived a life filled with excitement and hardship. He served as a Royal Air Force pilot during World War II, surviving a near-fatal crash in the Libyan desert. His wartime experiences and travels deeply influenced his story -
Michael Morpurgo
Sir Michael Andrew Morpurgo, OBE, FRSL is the author of many books for children, five of which have been made into films. He also writes his own screenplays and libretti for opera. Born in St Albans, Hertfordshire, in 1943, he was evacuated to Cumberland during the last years of the Second World War, then returned to London, moving later to Essex. After a brief and unsuccessful spell in the army, he took up teaching and started to write. He left teaching after ten years in order to set up 'Farms for City Children' with his wife. They have three farms in Devon, Wales and Gloucestershire, open to inner city school children who come to stay and work with the animals. In 1999 this work was publicly recognised when he and his wife were invested
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Dick King-Smith
Dick King-Smith was born and raised in Gloucestershire, England, surrounded by pet animals. After twenty years as a farmer, he turned to teaching and then to writing children's books.
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Dick writes mostly about animals: farmyard fantasy, as he likes to call it, often about pigs, his special favorites. He enjoys writing for children, meeting the children who read his books, and knowing that they get enjoyment from what he does.
Among his well-loved books is Babe, The Gallant Pig, which was recently made into a major motion picture, and was nominated for an Academy Award.
Dick lived with his wife in a small 17th-century cottage, about three miles from the house where he was born. -
Jeanne Willis
Jeanne Willis was born in St Albans and trained as an advertising copywriter at Watford College. She worked for various agencies creating press adverts and TV, cinema and radio commercials. She is now a full-time writer and has published over 80 books. Her hobbies include gardening, reading (non-fiction), natural history and collecting caterpillars. Jeanne has also worked on scripts for TV, including POLLY POCKET and THE SLOW NORRIS, and a pilot TV series for DR XARGLE. She lives in North London with her husband and two children.
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S.F. Said
Said grew up in the Iraqi diasporic community in London, moving there with his mother at the age of two. After graduating from the University of Cambridge, he worked as a press attaché and speech writer for the Crown Prince of Jordan’s office in London. He began a Ph.D. in 1997 looking at the lives of young Muslims in Britain, but left academia to focus on film journalism for the Daily Telegraph – where he brought attention to much 'world cinema', including contemporary Islamic cinema – and writing for children
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Eva Ibbotson
Eva Ibbotson (Maria Charlotte Michelle Wiesner) was a novelist specializing in romance and children's fantasy.
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She was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1925. When Hitler appeared, her family moved to England. She attended Bedford College, graduating in 1945; Cambridge University from 1946-47; and the University of Durham, graduating with a diploma in education in 1965. Eva had intended to be a physiologist but was put off by animal testing. Instead, she married and raised a family, returning to school to become a teacher in the 1960s. They have three sons and a daughter.
Eva began writing with the television drama “Linda Came Today” in 1965. Ten years later, she published her first novel, “The Great Ghost Rescue”. Eva has written numerous books in -
Kevin Brooks
Kevin Brooks was born in 1959 and grew up in Exeter, Devon, England. He studied Psychology and Philosophy at Birmingham, Aston University in 1980 and Cultural Studies in London in 1983. Kevin Brooks has been in a variety of jobs including: musician, gasoline station attendant, crematorium handyman, civil service clerk, hot dog vendor at the London Zoo, post office clerk, and railway ticket office clerk.
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Kevin Brooks's writing career started with the publication of Martyn Pig in 2002 through The Chicken House which won the Branford Boase Award 2003 and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. He also wrote Lucas (2002) which was shortlisted for the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and Booktrust Teenage Prize in 2003 also winning the North Eas -
Andrew Davidson
Andrew Davidson is the author of The Gargoyle, which came out in 2008. In America, the publisher is Doubleday; in Canada, the publisher is Random House; in the UK, the publisher is Canongate; in Australia, the publisher is Text. The book was a New York Times best-seller, and has been translated into thirty languages.
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Andrew lives in Canada, and is currently working on his next book. -
Jeff Kinney
Jeff Kinney is an author of children's books including Diary of a Wimpy Kid book series. Jeff was born in College Park, Maryland, in 1971 where he created a comic strip called "Igdoof."He also created the children's website 'Poptropica'.
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David Foenkinos
David Foenkinos is a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter and director who studied both literature and music in Paris.
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His novel La délicatesse is a bestseller in France. A film based on the book was released in December 2011, with Audrey Tautou as the main character. His novels have appeared in over forty languages, and in 2014 he was awarded the Prix Renaudot for his novel Charlotte.
Growing up in a home with few books and often absent parents, David Foenkinos read and wrote little during his childhood. At 16, he required emergency surgery as a result of a rare pleural infection and spent several months recuperating in hospital, where he began to devour books, learning to paint and play the guitar. From this experience, he says, he kep -
Sudha Murty
Sudha Murty was born in 1950 in Shiggaon in north Karnataka. She did her MTech in computer science, and is now the chairperson of the Infosys Foundation. A prolific writer in English and Kannada, she has written nine novels, four technical books, three travelogues, one collection of short stories, three collections of non-fiction pieces and two books for children.
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Her books have been translated into all the major Indian languages and have sold over three lakh copies around the country. She was the recipient of the R.K. Narayan's Award for Literature and the Padma Shri in 2006. -
Caitlin Moran
Caitlin Moran had literally no friends in 1990, and so had plenty of time to write her first novel, The Chronicles of Narmo, at the age of fifteen. At sixteen she joined music weekly, Melody Maker, and at eighteen briefly presented the pop show 'Naked City' on Channel 4. Following this precocious start she then put in eighteen solid years as a columnist on The Times – both as a TV critic and also in the most-read part of the paper, the satirical celebrity column 'Celebrity Watch' – winning the British Press Awards' Columnist of The Year award in 2010 and Critic and Interviewer of the Year in 2011. The eldest of eight children, home-educated in a council house in Wolverhampton, Caitlin read lots of books about feminism – mainly in an attempt
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A.F. Harrold
A.F. Harrold is an English poet. He writes and performs for adults and children, in cabaret and in schools, in bars and in basements, in fields and indoors. He was Glastonbury Festival Website's Poet-In-Residence in 2008, and Poet-In-Residence at Cheltenham Literature Festival in 2010. He won the Cheltenham All Stars Slam Championship in 2007 and has had his work on BBC Radio 4, Radio 3 and BBC7. He is active in schools work, running workshops and slams and doing performances at ungodly hours of the morning, and has published several collections of poetry. He is the owner of many books, a handful of hats, a few good ideas and one beard
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Annabel Pitcher
Annabel Pitcher studied English at Oxford and has since worked as a script writer and an English teacher. She lives in Yorkshire with her husband. MY SISTER LIVES ON THE MANTELPIECE was her first novel. She is a full-time writer.
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Tillie Cole
Amazon & USA Today Best Selling Author, Tillie Cole, is a Northern girl through and through. She originates from a place called Teesside on that little but awesomely sunny (okay I exaggerate) Isle called Great Britain. She was brought up surrounded by her English rose mother -- a farmer's daughter, her crazy Scottish father, a savagely sarcastic sister and a multitude of rescue animals and horses.
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Being a scary blend of Scottish and English, Tillie embraces both cultures; her English heritage through her love of HP sauce and freshly made Yorkshire Puddings, and her Scottish which is mostly demonstrated by her frighteningly foul-mouthed episodes of pure rage and her much loved dirty jokes.
Having been born and raised as a Teesside Smoggie, Ti -
Jessie Burton
Jessie Burton studied at Oxford University and the Central School of Speech and Drama, where she appeared in productions of The House of Bernarda Alba, Othello, Play and Macbeth. In April 2013 her first novel, The Miniaturist, was sold at an 11-publisher auction at the London Book Fair, and went on to sell in 29 other countries around the world. It was published by Picador in the UK and Holland in July 2014, and the USA in August 2014, with other translations to follow. Radio 4 commissioned it as their Book at Bedtime in July 2014. Her second book, The Muse, set in a dual time-frame, during the Spanish Civil War and 30 years later in 1960s London, was published in 2016. Jessie's first novel for children, The Restless Girls, will be publishe
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Laura Ellen Anderson
Laura Ellen Anderson is the illustrator of several books for children, as well as the author-illustrator of the graphic novel Evil Emperor Penguin. Laura Ellen Anderson lives in London.
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E.T.A. Hoffmann
Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann, better known by his pen name E. T. A. Hoffmann (Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann), was a German Romantic author of fantasy and horror, a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman and caricaturist. His stories form the basis of Jacques Offenbach's famous opera The Tales of Hoffmann, in which Hoffman appears (heavily fictionalized) as the hero. He is also the author of the novella The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, on which the famous ballet The Nutcracker is based. The ballet Coppélia is based on two other stories that Hoffmann wrote, while Schumann's Kreisleriana is based on Hoffmann's character Johannes Kreisler.
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Hoffmann's stories were very influential during the 19th century, and he is one of the major author -
Robert Thorogood
Robert Thorogood is an English screenwriter. He is best known as the creator of the BBC 1 Murder Mystery Series, Death in Paradise.
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Robert was educated at Uppingham School in Rutland and read History at Downing College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge, he toured with the university's student comedy troupe Footlights in 1993 and was elected President in 1994. Soon after leaving Cambridge, Robert set up a theatre company that toured small theatres and schools, the highlight of which was a production of Molière's The Miser that he directed and acted in alongside Robert Webb, David Mitchell and Olivia Colman.
Robert wrote for many years - selling scripts to the BBC, ITV and independent film companies - but before 2011 the only script of his that wa -
Borja González
Borja González is a self-taught illustrator and comic strip artist. His first published title was La Reina Orquídea, a precious and haunting short piece that placed the author at the center of national attention in Spain. A Gift for a Ghost is his first long-form work. He lives in Badajoz, Spain.
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Laura E. Weymouth
Laura Weymouth is a Canadian living in America, and the sixth consecutive generation of her family to immigrate from one country to another. Born and raised in the Niagara region of Ontario, she now lives at the edge of the woods in western New York, along with her husband, two wild-hearted daughters, and an ever-expanding menagerie of animal friends.
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Brian Wildsmith
Brian Wildsmith (1930-2016) was raised in a small mining village in Yorkshire, England, where, he says, "Everything was grey. There wasn't any colour. It was all up to my imagination. I had to draw in my head..."
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He won a scholarship to the Slade School of Fine Art where he studied for three years. For a while he taught music at the Royal Military School of Music, but then gave it up so that he could paint full time.
He has deservedly earned a reputation as one of the greatest living children's illustrators. In 1962, he published his first children's book, ABC, for which he was awarded the Kate Greenaway Medal, Britain's equivalent to the Caldecott Medal. He was also a runner up for this medal for The Owl and the Woodpecker.
Wildsmith has said -
Penelope Lively
Penelope Lively is the author of many prize-winning novels and short-story collections for both adults and children. She has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize: once in 1977 for her first novel, The Road to Lichfield, and again in 1984 for According to Mark. She later won the 1987 Booker Prize for her highly acclaimed novel Moon Tiger.
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Her other books include Going Back; Judgement Day; Next to Nature, Art; Perfect Happiness; Passing On; City of the Mind; Cleopatra’s Sister; Heat Wave; Beyond the Blue Mountains, a collection of short stories; Oleander, Jacaranda, a memoir of her childhood days in Egypt; Spiderweb; her autobiographical work, A House Unlocked; The Photograph; Making It Up; Consequences; Family Album, which was shortlis -
Thomas Meehan
Thomas Edward Meehan (Thomas Meehan) was an American writer.
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Librarian note: There is another author with this name in this data base. For the British-born botanist go to Thomas Meehan. -
Susan Green
Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
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Jennifer Lane
Jennifer Lane is an author and freelance writer. She has written for Vogue, The Week, Dazed, BBC, Wildlife Trusts, and RSPB to encourage people to get outdoors and explore nature in order to de-stress their lives.
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Her book The Wheel, on her year exploring Pagan practices and reconnecting with nature, was published by September Publishing (2021). Since then, she has also written The Witch's Survival Guide (2023), The Black Air (2023) and The Second-Hand Boy (2024). In June 2018, she won a Northern Writers’ Award for her children’s fiction which looks at destigmatising mental health issues for a younger audience. She is represented by Charlotte Atyeo at Charlie Campbell Literary Agents.
Her next book, a work of adult non-fiction, will be publis -
Jo Cotterill
Jo Cotterill has had several careers - actor, musician, teacher, newspaper seller - but is now a full-time writer in Oxfordshire. She loves writing for all ages and has published over twenty books. A Library of Lemons is a book from the heart about making connections and what it really means to be human. Jo loves going into schools and talking about books and reading, and can be found making cards and writing music when she's not spending time with her husband and two young daughters.
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Adina Popescu
Born in Bucharest, Romania, in 1978, Adina Popescu has a BA in Film Directing, but she’s been working as a cultural journalist since she was 18.
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In 1999, Adina published her first children’s book, Doar un zbor în jurul lumii (Just a Flight Over the World). Other books followed, showing her interest in children’s literature: Miriapodul hoinar şi alte poveşti (The Wandering Myriapod and Other Stories), Mari poveşti româneşti pe înţelesul celor mici (Romanian Tales for Young Readers), Aventurile lui Doxi în benzi desenate (Doxi’s Adventures in Comic Strips), the latter together with Alexandru Ciubotariu.
In 2015, she published Povestiri de pe Calea Moşilor (Stories from Calea Moșilor), a book initially written for adult readers, but which also -
Helga Schneider
Nasce nel 1937 in Slesia (territorio tedesco che dopo la seconda guerra mondiale sarà assegnato alla Polonia). Nel 1941 Helga e suo fratello Peter, rispettivamente di 4 anni e 19 mesi, con il padre già al fronte, vengono abbandonati a Berlino dalla madre, che arruolatasi come ausiliaria nelle SS diverrà guardiana al campo femminile di Ravensbruck e successivamente di Auschwitz-Birkenau.
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Helga e Peter vengono accolti nella lussuosa villa della sorella del padre, zia Margarete (dopo la guerra morirà per suicidio), in attesa che la nonna paterna arrivi dalla Polonia per occuparsi dei nipoti. La donna accudisce i bambini per circa un anno nell'appartamento situato a Berlin-Niederschönhausen (Pankow), dove i piccoli avevano vissuto in precedenza -
Federica Manzon
Federica Manzon is an Italian writer. She was the recipient of the Rapallo Carige Prize for Di fama e di sventura in 2011.
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Florin Bican
Florin Bican a absolvit Facultatea de Limbi și Literaturi străine, Secția engleză-rusă, a Universității București. A fost, pe rând, profesor de limba rusă, traducător din limba engleză, secretar pentru probleme de presă și relații internaționale al USR, asistent la Catedra de engleză a Universității București, iar în 1995 s-a stabilit în Germania, unde a predat limba engleză până în 2005. Revine în țară în 2006 în calitate de Coordonator al programului Institutului Cultural Român pentru pregătirea tinerilor traducători străini în vederea traducerii scriitorilor români.
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Desfășoară o intensă activitate de traducător, tălmăcind în românește, printre altele, Lewis Carroll (The Hunting of The Snark) şi T.S. Eliot (Old Possum’s Book of Practical C