Authors

Roald Dahl was born on 13 September, 1916, in Llandaff, South Wales. In 1953, he published the best-selling story collection Someone Like You and married actress Patricia Neil. He published the popular book "James and the Giant Peach" in 1961. 

In 1964, he released another highly successful work, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ". which was later adapted for two films. Over his decades-long writing career, Dahl wrote 19 children’s books. He died on 23 November, 1990, in Oxford, England. 

 

Anthony Horowitz

After being introduced to classic horror novels including Dracula and Frankenstein by his mother when he was just 13, Anthony Horowitz was inspired to write from an early age. Born on 5 April, 1955 in London, he is the author of the bestselling "Alex Rider"  and the Diamond Brothers books and has also written James Bond and Sherlock Holmes novels for adults.

Writing for almost ten hours a day, seven days a week, Anthony’s first book was published in 1979 and the first Alex Rider book was published in 2000. The Alex Rider series lasted for 10 books and finished in 2013. Anthony was awarded an OBE for services to literature in 2014 and listens to classical music and enjoys scuva diving in his spare time. He also created the TV shows Foyle’s War and Injustice.

Enid Blyton

Enid Blyton is one of the world’s best-loved children’s authors with over 700 titles published and sales of over 700,000 in the UK each year.  Her stories, which include The Famous Five, The Magic Faraway Tree, Malory Towers, St Clare’s, The Wishing Chair and Amelia Janeseries, remain timeless classics across the world.

Darren Shan

Darren is a massively successful author of numerous fantasy and horror books for both young people and adults.His most famous works include the 12 books of The Saga of Darren Shan; the 10 books of The Demonata, The City Trilogy; The Thin Executioner and his most recent series of 4 books, The Saga of Larten Crepsley. A movie of Cirque Du Freak was completed in 2009.

By the start of 2010, Darren's books were on sale in every continent, in 39 countries, in 31 languages, and have been children's bestsellers in America, Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway and other countries. The books have topped adult bestseller charts in Hungary, Japan and Taiwan. In total, his books have sold close to 15 million copies worldwide.

 

Judith Kerr

Judith Kerr  was born on 14 June 1923 in Berlin but escaped from Hitler's Germany with her parents and brother in 1933 when she was nine years old. Her father was a drama critic and a distinguished writer whose books were burned by the Nazis. The family passed through Switzerland and France before arriving finally in England in 1936. Judith went to eleven different schools, worked in the Red Cross during the war, and won a scholarship to the Central School of Arts and Crafts in 1945. She worked as an artist, a BBC television scriptwriter and as an author and illustrator of children's books.

 

Julia Donaldson

Julia Donaldson is the outrageously talented, prize-winning author of some of the world’s best-loved picture books including modern classics The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo’s Child, which together have sold over 17 million copies worldwide and have been translated into seventy-five languages. Her other books include Room on the Broom, Stick Man and the What the Ladybird Heard series. Julia also writes fiction as well as poems, plays and songs and her brilliant live shows are always in demand. She was the 2011-2013 UK Children’s Laureate and has been honoured with an MBE for Services to Literature. Julia and her husband Malcolm divide their time between West Sussex and Edinburgh.

 

Jill Murphy

Jill Murphy was born in London in 1949. From a very early age she was drawing and writing stories, and was already putting books together (literally, with a stapler) by the time she was six. She went on to study at Chelsea, Croydon and Camberwell Schools of Art. Jill worked in a children's home for four years and as a nanny for a year, before becoming a freelance writer and illustrator. She now lives in Cornwall with her son Charlie.

 

James Patterson

James Patterson is the world’s bestselling author, best known for his many enduring fictional characters and series, including Alex Cross, the Women’s Murder Club, Michael Bennett, Maximum Ride, Middle School, I Funny, and Jacky Ha-Ha. Patterson’s writing career is characterized by a single mission: to prove to everyone, from children to adults, that there is no such thing as a person who “doesn’t like to read,” only people who haven’t found the right book. He’s given over a million books to schoolkids and over forty million dollars to support education, and endowed over five thousand college scholarships for teachers.