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Nina Ellinor Beachcroft (born 10 November 1931) is an English writer, who specialises in children's fantasy novels. [1]
Nina Ellinor Beachcroft was born on 10 November 1931, daughter of the writer Thomas Owen (T.O.) Beachcroft. She was educated at Wimbledon High School and St Hilda's College, Oxford 1950–53. In 1954 she married Richard Gardner, with whom she had two daughters. [2] In the 1950s, she worked as a sub editor for The Argosy and the Radio Times and currently lives in Knebworth, Hertfordshire, England. [3] Her first novel Well Met By Witchlight was published in the UK in 1972. She has written nine children's novels.
Beachcroft's novels are in the children's fantasy genre, including witches, genies and other magic characters interacting with human children. Neil Philip in the London Times describes her magical plots as having "none of the portentous mysticism of many of the vogue fantasies of the sixties and seventies ... instead she uses magic lightly to explore the theme of control." [4]
Susan Mary Cooper is an English author of children's books. She is best known for The Dark Is Rising, a contemporary fantasy series set in England and Wales, which incorporates British mythology such as the Arthurian legends and Welsh folk heroes. For that work, in 2012 she won the lifetime Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association, recognizing her contribution to writing for teens. In the 1970s two of the five novels were named the year's best English-language book with an "authentic Welsh background" by the Welsh Books Council.
Marion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley was an American author of fantasy, historical fantasy, science fiction, and science fantasy novels, and is best known for the Arthurian fiction novel The Mists of Avalon and the Darkover series. Noted for the feminist perspective in her writing, her reputation has been posthumously marred by her daughter Moira Greyland's accusations of child sexual abuse, and for allegedly assisting her second husband, convicted child abuser Walter Breen, in sexually abusing multiple unrelated children.
Dorothy Kathleen Broster, usually known as D. K. Broster, was an English novelist and short-story writer. Her fiction consists mainly of historical romances set in the 18th or early 19th centuries. Her best known novel is The Flight of the Heron (1925), set during the Jacobite rising of 1745.
Madeleine L'Engle was an American writer of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and young adult fiction, including A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels: A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time. Her works reflect both her Christian faith and her strong interest in modern science.
Margaret Mahy was a New Zealand author of children's and young adult books. Many of her story plots have strong supernatural elements but her writing concentrates on the themes of human relationships and growing up. She wrote more than 100 picture books, 40 novels and 20 collections of short stories. At her death she was one of thirty writers to win the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Medal for her "lasting contribution to children's literature".
Trina Schart Hyman was an American illustrator of children's books. She illustrated over 150 books, including fairy tales and Arthurian legends. She won the 1985 Caldecott Medal for U.S. picture book illustration, recognizing Saint George and the Dragon, retold by Margaret Hodges.
Gillian Honorine Mary Herbert, Baroness Hemingford,, known professionally as Jill Paton Walsh, was an English novelist and children's writer. She may be known best for her Booker Prize-nominated novel Knowledge of Angels and for the Peter Wimsey–Harriet Vane mysteries that continued the work of Dorothy L. Sayers.
Ingri d'Aulaire and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire were American writers and illustrators of children's books who worked primarily as a team, completing almost all of their well-known works together. The couple immigrated to the United States from Europe and worked on books that focused on history such as Abraham Lincoln, which won the 1940 Caldecott Medal. They were part of the group of immigrant artists composed of Feodor Rojankovsky, Roger Duvoisin, Ludwig Bemelmans, Miska Petersham and Tibor Gergely, who helped shape the Golden Age of picture books in mid-twentieth-century America.
Kathleen Mary Norton, known professionally as Mary Norton, was an English writer of children's books. She is best known for The Borrowers series of low fantasy novels, which is named after its first book and, in turn, the tiny people who live secretly in the midst of contemporary human civilisation.
Cordelia Caroline Sherman, known professionally as Delia Sherman, is an American fantasy writer and editor. Her novel The Porcelain Dove won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award.
Evangeline Walton was the pen name of Evangeline Wilna Ensley, an American writer of fantasy fiction. She remains popular in North America and Europe because of her “ability to humanize historical and mythological subjects with eloquence, humor and compassion”.
Linda Anne Chapman is a British writer, principally of series for younger children. She is particularly known for her fantasy books about unicorns, mermaids and magic and has co-authored books with Julie Sykes, Michelle Misra, Lee Weatherly and Steve Cole. She also writes the Superpowers series as Alex Cliff. She has written several of the series books published under the names Lucy Daniels, Jenny Dale, Daisy Meadows, Rosie Banks Katie Chase, Amber Castle, Astrid Foss, Tilda Kelly, Posy Diamond and Lauren Brooke, either as part of a collective pseudonym or as a ghostwriter. She has written "about 300" books. She currently lives in a Leicestershire village with her husband and three children.
Patricia Wrightson OBE was an Australian writer of several highly regarded and influential children's books. Employing a 'magic realism' style, her books, including the award-winning The Nargun and the Stars (1973), were among the first Australian books for children to draw on Australian Aboriginal mythology. Her 27 books have been published in 16 languages.
Pat O'Shea was an Irish children's fiction writer. She was born in Galway and was the youngest of five children. Her first novel was the best-selling The Hounds of the Morrigan, which took 13 years to complete. It was finally published in 1985 by Oxford University Press, translated into five languages, and is still considered a classic of children's literature.
Ruth Manning-Sanders was an English poet and author born in Wales, known for a series of children's books for which she collected and related fairy tales worldwide. She published over 90 books in her lifetime
Maureen Mollie Hunter McIlwraith was a Scottish writer known as Mollie Hunter. She wrote fantasy for children, historical stories for young adults, and realistic novels for adults. Many of her works are inspired by Scottish history, or by Scottish or Irish folklore, with elements of magic and fantasy.
Penelope Jane Farmer is an English fiction writer well known for children's fantasy novels. Her best-known novel is Charlotte Sometimes (1969), a boarding-school story that features a multiple time slip.
Barbara Irene Veronica Comyns Carr, known as Barbara Comyns, was an English writer and artist.
Barbara Grace de Riemer Sleigh (1906–1982) was an English children's writer and broadcaster. She is remembered most for her Carbonel series about a king of cats.
Janet McNeill was a prolific Irish novelist and playwright. Author of more than 20 children's books, as well as adult novels, plays, and two opera libretti, she was best known for her children's comic fantasy series My Friend Specs McCann.