Question: which author has twice won the Carnegie Medal and twice been named as the British Book Awards Children’s Author of the Year? Who served as Children’s Laureate from 2001-2003, was honoured with an OBE and won the coveted Guardian Prize? And delighted kids across the world with books like Bill’s New Frock, Flour Babies and Diary of a Killer Cat? Answer (you guessed it): Anne Fine. So as you’ve probably worked out, her children’s books are really worth writing home about. But before you do that, you’ll have to read them – so get started with this pack of funny favourites!

An entry-level pack from a true legend of children’s literature

Funny, accessible reads which give a first taste of Anne Fine’s work

Anne has won the Carnegie Medal, Whitbread Prize and Guardian Prize

Light yet realistic stories which explore family life, school and bullying

The ideal way to show younger children how rewarding reading can be

Product Details

Format

Paperback

Date published

January 3rd, 2019

Condition

New

In this pack

On Planet Fruitcake

Award-winning author
The Angel of Nitshill Road

Award-winning author
The Diary of a Killer Cat

Award-winning author
The Killer Cat Runs Away

Award-winning author

Author/Illustrator

Anne Fine

Anne Fine is a multi award-winning novelist, and was Children’s Laureate from 2001-2003. Her novels range from the wickedly funny Diary of a Killer Cat for young readers, to the provocative_Road of Bones_ for teenage readers.

Speaking about her work, Anne says: “A lot of my work, even for fairly young readers, raises quite serious social issues. I believe that many personal decisions have a social or political resonance, and the way people try to pick their way through tricky family situations interests me. But people won’t (and shouldn’t) read books that don’t hold their interest, and I still adore funny books. So since I write for the reader inside myself, I always end up with the kind of book I would have loved to read (if only someone else had bothered to write for me.”

More about Anne: “When I was young, it never occurred to me that I might be a writer. I think I must have thought that books were born on the library shelves. But I was good at writing stories, and I had a good deal of practice.

At school, I enjoyed languages most, and took French and Spanish, along with History, for A levels. That meant there was no room for English, and so for my whole life I have been able simply to read what I want when I want, and only for pleasure or interest. I suspect that this has been really important for the way I write, making it so much easier to think always of the reader.

I studied Politics and History at University, and the interest in political issues shows up in many of the books. After university I taught in a girls’ secondary school for a year — exhausting! — and then moved with my husband to Oxford, where I worked as an Information Officer for Oxfam. Though I was only in this job for two years, it changed my attitudes to money, to ‘things’, and to what is truly important in life, for ever.

In 1971 my first daughter was born. Unable to get to the library in a snowstorm to change my library books, in desperation I sat down and started to write a novel. Clearly this was the right job for me, for I have never stopped writing for more than a few weeks since.

My husband’s job took us to California, Arizona, Michigan and Canada, where our second daughter was born. In 1981 I returned to Edinburgh, and a few years later moved to County Durham, where I now live quietly in a stone house beside a river with Richard, my partner of fifteen years.”