Geraldine McCaughrean
AUTHOR

Geraldine McCaughrean

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It's 40 years now since I first got published, and 50 since I found out how writing let me step outside my little, everyday world and go wherever I chose - way back in Time, to far distant shores, towards my own, home-made happy ending. I write adventure, first and foremost, because that's what I enjoyed reading as a child. But since I have published over 180 books now, there are all manner of books in among that number - gorgeously illustrated (not by me!) picture books, easy readers, retellings, collections of short stories and dozens of other stories and poems for anthologies; junior and teenage books, and five adult novels.
The White Darkness won the Printz Award in the USA, which, for as Englishwoman, was the most amazing, startling thrill.
Then there was Peter Pan in Scarlet - official sequel to J M Barrie's Peter Pan, written on behalf of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children. I won the chance to write that in a worldwide competition and, because Peter Pan is loved everywhere, my book sold worldwide.
I can't say I expected any of this when, as a child, I dreamed of being like my older brother and getting 'a book' published one day.
These days I have a husband (good at continuity and spelling) and a daughter who is an excellent editor. But she's an actor. So, naturally, I have also turned my hand to writing plays. (So many actors, so few plays!)
My Mum told me, "Never boil your cabbages twice, dear," which was her way of saying, "Don't repeat yourself." So I have tried never to write the same book twice. You'll find all my novels quite different from one another. I'm afraid, the only way you can find out which ones you like and which you don't is to read them!
Among my many retellings are myths, legends, folk and fairy tales, and indigestible classics such as El Cid, the Epic of Gilgamesh, The Odyssey, Moby Dick, Shakespeare, the Pilgrim's Progress....
Something for everyone, you see, my dear young, not-so-young, eccentric, middle-of-the-road, poetical, sad, cheerful, timid or reckless reader.
All they have in common is that they all contain words. If you are allergic to words, you'd best not open the covers.

Geraldine McCaughrean has written 180 books and 15 plays (+ short playscripts for schools) for both adults and children. The books include Peter Pan in Scarlet, one of the most talked about and successful children's titles of 2006.

Geraldine McCaughrean has won the Carnegie Medal twice, the Whitbread Children's Book Award three times, the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, the Smarties Bronze Award four times, the Blue Peter Book of the Year Award and the Blue Peter Special Book to Keep Forever Award, She has also had eight titles short-listed, (including the two winners) for the Carnegie Medal, the latest being Where The World Ends which also won the Independent Bookshops' Award.
In America, she has won two Michael L Printz Awards.
WATCH OUT FOR "THE SUPREME LIE", COMING IN APRIL 2020.
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