David Almond
David Almond FRSL (born 15 May 1951) is a British author who has written several novels for children and 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.
Early life
Almond was born and raised in Felling and Gateshead. 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. 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.
