Aidan Chambers

Aidan Chambers (born 27 December 1934) is an award-winning British writer of novels for children and young adults.

Life and work

Born near Chester-le-Street, County Durham in 1934, Chambers was an only child, and a poor scholar; considered "slow" by his teachers, he did not learn to read fluently until the age of nine. [ [http://www.aidanchambers.co.uk/bio.htm Biography Page - Aidan Chambers ] ] After two years in the Royal Navy as part of his National Service, Chambers trained as a teacher and taught for three years at Westcliff High School in Southend on Sea before joining an Anglican monastery in Stroud, Gloucestershire in 1960. He later used his experience as a monk in his novel "Now I Know".

His first plays, including "Johnny Salter" (1966), "The Car" and "The Chicken Run" (1968), were published while he was a teacher in Stroud.

Chambers left the monastery in 1967 and a year later became a freelance writer. His works include the "Dance sequence" of six novels: "Breaktime", "Dance on My Grave", "Now I Know", "The Toll Bridge", "Postcards from No Man's Land" and "". He and his wife, Nancy, founded Thimble Press and the magazine "Signal" to promote literature for children and young adults. They were awarded the Eleanor Farjeon Award for outstanding services to children's books in 1982. From 2003 to 2006 he was President of the School Library Association.

Books

Novels for young adults

*Cycle Smash (1967)
*Marle (1968)
*Snake River (1975)
*Breaktime (1978)
*Dance on my Grave (1982)
*Now I Know (1987)
*The Toll Bridge (1992)
*Postcards from No Man's Land (1999)
*This Is All: the Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn (2005)

Novels for children"'

*Seal Secret (1980)
*The Present Takers (1984). He has also compiled and edited many further children's books, several of them ghost-related.

Criticism and Education

*The Reluctant Reader (1969)
*Introducing Books to Children (1973, 1983)
*Booktalk: occasional writing on literature and children (1985)
*The Reading Environment (1991)
*Tell Me: Children, Reading and Talk (1993)
*Reading Talk (2001)

Awards and honours

*1979 Children's Literature Association Award for Literary Criticism
*1982 Eleanor Farjeon Award for Outstanding Services to Children's Books (shared with wife Nancy)
*1999 Carnegie Medal for "Postcards from No Man's Land"
*2002 Michael J Printz Award for "Postcards from No Man's Land"
* 2002 Hans Christian Andersen Award in recognition of his distinguished body of writing. [ [http://www.ibby.org/index.php?id=308 Winners 1956-2006 ] ]
*2003 Honorary Doctorate from the University of Umeå.
*2008 Honorary Doctorate from the University of Gloucestershire

References

Further reading

*Greenaway, Betty. "Aidan Chambers: Master Literary Choreographer". The Scarecrow Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0-8108-5087-3.

External links

* [http://www.aidanchambers.co.uk Official website]