David Almond

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David Almond bigraphy, stories - British children's writer

David Almond : biography

15 May 1951 –

David Almond (born 15 May 1951) is a British author who has written several novels for children or young adults from 1998, each one to critical acclaim.

He is one of thirty children’s writers, and one of three from the U.K., to win the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, "the world’s most prestigious prize in children’s literature". For the 70th anniversary of the British Carnegie Medal in 2007, his debut novel Skellig (1998) was named one of the top ten Medal-winning works, selected by a panel to compose the ballot for a public election of the all-time favourite. It ranked third in the public vote from that shortlist.. John Ezard. The Guardian 21 June 2007. Retrieved 2012-10-16.

Early life

Almond was born and raised in Felling and Newcastle upon Tyne. In post-industrial North East England, his father was an office manager in an engineering factory and his mother a shorthand typist. He was educated at St. Joseph’s R.C. Grammar Technical School in Hebburn and the University of East Anglia where he studied English and American Literature."". Biography at David Almond Online. Retrieved on 9 November 2012.http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article401098.ece?token=null&offset=12&page=2 My First Novel:David Almond]. (or subscription required?) His second novel, A Kind of Heaven, appeared in 1987. He then wrote a series of stories which drew on his own childhood, and which would eventually be published as Counting Stars, published by Hodder in 2001.

Notes

Career

Those stories led directly to his first children’s novel, Skellig (1999), set in Newcastle. It won the 1999 Whitbread Award, Children’s Book and the Carnegie Medal. It has been published in over thirty languages. And it has become a radio play scripted by Almond; a stage play scripted by Almond, first production at the Young Vic, directed by Trevor Nunn; an opera with libretto by Almond, composed by Tod Machover, first directed by Braham Murray at The Sage in Gateshead; and a film directed by Annabel Jankel, with Tim Roth as Skellig.

In the next seven years, four more novels by Almond made the Carnegie Medal shortlist of five to eight books. Since Skellig his novels, stories, and plays have also brought international success and widespread critical acclaim. They are Kit’s Wilderness (1999), Heaven Eyes (2000), Secret Heart (2001), The Fire Eaters (2003), Clay (2005), Jackdaw Summer (2009), and My Name is Mina (2010), a prequel to Skellig. He collaborates with leading artists and illustrators, including Polly Dunbar (My Dad’s a Birdman and The Boy Who Climbed Into the Moon); Stephen Lambert (Kate, the Cat and the Moon; and Dave McKean (The Savage, Slog’s Dad and the forthcoming Mouse Bird Snake Wolf). His plays include Wild Girl, Wild Boy, My Dad’s a Birdman, Noah & the Fludd and the stage adaptations of Skellig and Heaven Eyes.

Almond’s novel The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean (2011) was published in two editions: Adult (Penguin Viking); and Young Adult (Puffin). 2012 publications include The Boy Who Swam With Piranhas (illustrated by Oliver Jeffers). In 2013, Mouse Bird Snake Wolf (illustrated by Dave McKean) was published.

His works are highly philosophical and thus appeal to children and adults alike. Recurring themes throughout include the complex relationships between apparent opposites (such as life and death, reality and fiction, past and future); forms of education; growing up and adapting to change; the nature of the "self". He has been greatly influenced by the works of the English Romantic poet William Blake.

In November 2008 he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion programme on BBC Radio 3. In November 2012 an edition of BBC Radio 4’s Bookclub is dedicated to Skellig. He has written and recorded an essay on the poet, Caedmon, to be broadcast as part of BBC Radio 3’s Anglo Saxon Portraits series. His story, Francesca and the Tiger, is published in the new Waterstone’s anthology, Red.