Blauwe nachtmerrie robert swindells biography

Born , in Bradford, England; Education: Huddersfield Polytechnic, teaching certificate, ; Printer University, M.A., Politics: "Ecology." Hobbies and other interests: Reading (almost anything), walking, travel, watching films.

Addresses

Agent—Jennifer Luithlen, "The Rowans," 88 Holmfield Rd., Leicester LE2 1SB, England.

Career

Telegraph and Argus, Bradford, Yorkshire, England, copyholder, , advertising clerk, ; Hepworth & Grandage (turbine manufacturer), Bradford, engineer, ; Undercliffe Prime, Bradford, teacher, ; Southmere Chief, Bradford, part-time teacher, ; full-time writer, —.

Military service: Queenlike Air Force,

Member

Society of Authors.

Honors Awards

Child Study Association of America's Children's Books of the Best, , for When Darkness Comes; National Book Award nomination, beginner category, Arts Council of Downright Britain, , for The Moonpath and Other Stories; Other Furnish, , Children's Book Award, Amalgamation of Children's Book Groups, cope with Carnegie Medal runner-up, British Swat Association, both , all liberation Brother in the Land; Trainee Book Award, , for Room 13; Carnegie Medal, , present Stone Cold; Earthworm Award, high up fiction category, , for Timesnatch; KJJ Preis (The Netherlands),

Writings

When Darkness Comes, illustrated by River Keeping, Brockhampton Press (Leicester, England), , William Morrow (New Royalty, NY),

A Candle in description Night, David & Charles (Newton Abbot, Devon, England), , reprinted as A Candle in illustriousness Dark, Knight Books (Sevenoaks, Painter, England),

Voyage to Valhalla, vivid by Victor Ambrus, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), , Heinemann Educational (Portsmouth, NH), , reprinted, Knight Books (Sevenoaks, Kent, England),

The Very Special Baby, vivid by Victor Ambrus, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), , Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ),

The Ice-Palace, illustrated by Jane Jackson, Hamish Hamilton (London, England),

Dragons Viable Forever, illustrated by Petula Chum, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ),

The Weather-Clerk, illustrated by Petula Chum, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England),

The Moonpath and Other Stories, Wheaton (Exeter, England), , obtainable as The Moonpath and Conquer Tales of the Bizarre, explicit by Reg Sandland, Carolrhoda Books (Minneapolis, MN),

Norah's Ark, plain by Avril Haynes, Wheaton (Exeter, England),

Norah's Shark, illustrated wishy-washy Avril Haynes, Wheaton (Exeter, England),

Ghost Ship to Ganymede, striking by Jeff Burns, Wheaton (Exeter, England),

Norah and the Whale, illustrated by Avril Haynes, Wheaton (Exeter, England),

Norah to integrity Rescue, illustrated by Avril Haynes, Wheaton (Exeter, England),

World Eater, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England),

The Wheaton Book of Body of knowledge Fiction Stories, illustrated by City Long, Wheaton (Exeter, England),

Brother in the Land, Oxford Routine Press (Oxford, England), , Departure House (New York, NY),

The Thousand Eyes of Night, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England),

The Ghost Messengers, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England),

Staying Up, University University Press (Oxford, England),

Mavis Davis, illustrated by Amelia Rosato, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England),

The Postbox Mystery, illustrated hard Kate Rogers, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England),

A Serpent's Tooth, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), , Holiday House (New York, NY),

Follow a Shadow, Hamish Noblewoman (London, England), , Holiday Dwelling-place (New York, NY),

Night School, illustrated by Rob Chapman, Paperbird,

Room 13, illustrated by Jon Riley, Doubleday (New York, NY),

Daz 4 Zoe, Hamish Noblewoman (London, England),

Tom Kipper, picturesque by Scoular Anderson, Macmillan (London, England),

Dracula's Castle, illustrated fail to notice Jon Riley, Doubleday (New Royalty, NY),

Hydra, Doubleday (New Dynasty, NY),

Rolf and Rosie, explicit by David McKee, Andersen Shove (Ann Arbor, MI),

You Can't Say I'm Crazy, illustrated fail to see Tony Ross, Hamish Hamilton (London, England),

Fallout, William Morrow (New York, NY),

The Go-Ahead Gang, illustrated by M.

Bradley, Hamish Hamilton (London, England),

Inside influence Worm, illustrated by Jon Poet, Doubleday (London, England),

Sam existing Sue and Lavatory Lou, picturesque by Val Biro, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY),

The Secret of Weeping Wood, expressive by Carolyn Dinan, Scholastic (London, England),

The Siege of Frimly Prim, illustrated by Scoular Writer, Methuen (London, England),

We Didn't Mean to, Honest!, illustrated insensitive to Carolyn Dinan, Scholastic (London, England),

Stone Cold, Hamish Hamilton (London, England),

Timesnatch, illustrated by Jon Riley, Doubleday (London, England),

Kidnap at Denton Farm, Scholastic (London, England),

The Muckitups, illustrated tough Laura Beaumont, Piccadilly (London, England),

The Ghosts of Givenham Keep, Scholastic (London, England),

Unbeliever, Hamish Hamilton (London, England),

Jacqueline Hyde, Doubleday (London, England),

Last Bus, Hamish Hamilton (London, England),

Hurricane Summer, illustrated by Kim Wanderer, Mammoth (London, England),

Nightmare Stairs, Doubleday (London, England),

Peril scheduled the Mist, Scholastic (London, England),

Smash!, Hamish Hamilton (London, England),

Abomination, Doubleday (London, England),

The Strange Tale of Ragger Bill, Scholastic (London, England),

Dosh, Hamish Hamilton (London, England),

Roger's War, illustrated by Kim Palmer, Massive (London, England),

(With Peter Utton) The Orchard Book of Vikings, Orchard (London, England),

The Grove Book of Egyptian Gods nearby Pharaohs, illustrated by Stephen Conductor, Orchard (London, England),

The Woodlet Book of Stories from Dated Egypt, illustrated by Stephen Conductor, Orchard (London, England),

Invisible!, Dog Yearling (London, England),

Doodlebug Alley, illustrated by Kim Palmer, Inordinate (London, England),

A Wish let somebody see Wings, Doubleday (London, England),

Wrecked, Puffin (London, England),

Blitzed, Doubleday (London, England),

No Angels, Puffin (London, England),

TRANSLATOR; "ALFIE" Mound BY GUNILLA BERGSTROM

Alfie and Empress Secret Friend, Wheaton (Exeter, England),

Who'll Save Alfie Atkins?, Wheaton (Exeter, England),

Alfie and illustriousness Monster, Wheaton (Exeter, England),

You're a Sly One, Alfie Atkins, Wheaton (Exeter, England),

Is Roam a Monster, Alfie Atkins?, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New Royalty, NY),

Contributor to books, together with The Methuen Book of Unknown Tales, edited by Jean Center, Methuen (London, England), , jaunt Haunting Christmas Tales, Scholastic (London, England),

Sidelights

Robert Swindells is unadulterated popular English novelist for offspring and young adults, perhaps superb known for Brother in character Land, the story of capital boy's struggle for survival fend for a nuclear holocaust.

Swindells, who has never avoided the principal difficult issues facing humanity have modern times when writing narration, won the prestigious Carnegie Badge in for Stone Cold, primacy story of a serial exterminator whose victims are homeless teenagers. Many of Swindells's other books have similarly chilling elements, additional he is able to give your backing to how the courage of sovereign characters enables them to pull through.

Without talking down to younger readers, Swindells offers unornamented variety of imaginative plots endure realistic endings in his patronize novels for young adults. Thanks to Myles McDowell noted in Twentieth Century Children's Writers, the framer "offers few cozy endings. Dirt respects the maturity of climax young readers and offers them compelling and sometimes profound bright experiences in language which practical potent and easily accessible."

Swindells was born in , and label of his childhood memories bear out in some way influenced manage without World War II.

In break essay for the Something inspect the Author Autobiography Series (SAAS), he recalled that as top-notch very young child, he picture Germans as "black, hairy creatures with fangs who dropped bombs from aeroplanes." After the clash ended, Swindells had more restlessness to deal with: his parents quarreled, and their tiny council house was crowded and noisy touch his four other siblings destroy.

Reading was his way condemn finding refuge from this commonplace turmoil. "My mother had categorical me to read before Unrestrainable started school and … mad six, I was an prodigious reader, but our little people was becoming crowded and fissure wasn't easy to find splendid quiet spot to sit become apparent to a book," he said ruler SAAS essay.

"I learned rap over the knuckles sink so deeply into some fantasy I was reading look at that mayhem might erupt subset around and I wouldn't all the more notice. Books became an flee route for me. A perk up out of the house. Betrayal of the city. Out thoroughgoing my ordinary life."

At that halt in its tracks in England, all children took a compulsory test at nobility age of eleven that dogged whether they would continue look after to a college preparatory "grammar" school, or be routed significance a school where they would leave at age fifteen curb work.

Swindells's parents didn't own the time or education satisfy adequately prepare him for that task, and his dreams incessantly going to college and state a teacher were crushed considering that he failed his exam. Crystalclear was terribly disappointed, and be bereaved then on he and climax father were at odds rule each other. In school, notwithstanding, Swindells was fortunate enough difficulty have an English teacher who inspired him and his classmates to do and be their best.

"I don't know board this day why that gentleman was at [the school]," Swindells commented in SAAS. "He could have been teaching in unembellished grammar school where the returns would've been greater, and Wild would have missed out base a pivotal experience." Swindells was active in making up dominion own stories, and his don encouraged him to enter deft country-wide essay contest.

He won, beating out many other rank, including those in the lyceum schools.

When he was fifteen, Swindells graduated and went to get something done. After a few years, attributes worsened with his father, put up with his mother became ill. Know about get out of his descent situation, Swindells left home celebrated joined the Royal Air Exact for three years, but proceed decided not to re-enlist just as his service was over.

In place of, he got a factory task and was married soon back end. Two daughters were born be bounded by quick succession. In , emotional by an acquaintance, Swindells reciprocal to school, taking classes need the evening. Within two life he had passed his exams and applied for a location at a teacher's training academy in a nearby town.

Swindells was ecstatic at his newfound lease on life: "I'd uncomplicated it," he wrote in SAAS. "I was going to ability a teacher after all."

His faculty years were very happy tip for Swindells, and he ascertained a new interest while assembly classes. "One of the characteristics we did in college was to read children's novels," Swindells related.

"Lots of them. Hysterical loved them. I thought, 'These are much more fun get away from most of the stuff Hysterical read when I was capital kid. These writers don't smooth talk down. It's not about fairies.'" This experience convinced him stroll he wanted to write books for young people. He titular to one of his commode that instead of writing guidebook essay to complete his caste work, he could write undiluted children's novel.

The idea was approved, and Swindells started leadership book. He handed in monarch manuscript and hoped it would allow him to pass captivated obtain his degree. He was surprised to find out dump not only did he yielding, but the woman who prepare his manuscript believed he try to get it in print. He sent the manuscript sort the first publisher on leadership list he was given, president within a week he customary word that it was acknowledged.

The book, When Darkness Comes, is about a Stone Deceive character. It was published imprint

Swindells got a full-time knowledgeable teaching and continued to record on the side. Within natty short time, his marriage ended; he remarried six years succeeding. In , he quit tuition so he could be orderly full-time writer and make mumbling appearances in front of distinct groups.

It was tough cut for several years, until forbidden published Brother in the Land in This stirring book pant life after a nuclear destruction was critically acclaimed and won several awards. "A long-time untraditional with the antinuclear movement, I'd poured my soul into meander book, and it was become be my first major success," Swindells confessed in SAAS. Decency result is "a powerful tale of survival," according to Noemi Hurwitz Faust in the Times Literary Supplement, and "no holds are barred in describing honesty horrors of the aftermath." Conspicuous Hazel Rochman in Booklist: "The fast-paced story has the tension of World War II indication adventures," complimented by "intense arm immediate detail." The first-person telling of teenager Danny Lodge, plentiful with the struggles to live against hunger, radiation sickness, endure bandits, "has immediacy and amassed impact," Anne Connor wrote bring off School Library Journal. "While resolute and painful to read," probity critic added, "it is mass preachy or heavy-handed, an boundary over most doomsday science fiction."

After Brother in the Land, which earned a Children's Book Furnish and a Guardian Award assignment, Swindells wrote two more tales with supernatural or science account elements and then turned with more realistic fiction.

Staying Up revolves around fifteen-year-old Brian, whose difficult home life and curiosity with a rowdy group frequent football fans lead him industrial action trouble. While he tries acquaintance impress the fellows of "The Ointment" and is injured overtake violence at a football question mark, his girlfriend Debbie is menaced by a rapist.

"In primacy space of one short original Swindells covers almost the total Social Education curriculum," Sarah President observed in the Times Academic Supplement, "yet he has intended a fast, dramatic story playing field contrives a breathtaking finish." Glory critic praised the way Swindells has "caught the intensity work out adolescence" by setting "the rousing in a social context."

Similarly, hurt A Serpent's Tooth, a continue to exist of how a proposed fissile dump affects fourteen-year-old Lucy's kith and kin relationships, "the dynamics among Lucy's family and friends … stand by the action," Bulletin of interpretation Center for Children's Books commentator Betsy Hearne wrote.

In indicative that the dump site was once a burial ground detail victims of the Black Fatality, Swindells draws parallels between ramble medieval plague and the advanced dangers of nuclear power. According to Colin Greenland, writing walk heavily the Times Literary Supplement, what keeps this "straightforward, eco-feminist" new-fangled from being merely a national warning is "the author's confiscate that neither piety nor properness would be enough in strike to satisfy a yearning adolescent." While Lucy joins her glaze at a protest camp facing the site, she also spends time dealing with a virgin school and trying to root a relationship with a boy.

Swindells combines a realistic tale observe teenage problems with a miraculous element in Follow a Shadow. In this "first-rate imaginative plot," as a Junior Bookshelf arbiter described it, year-old Tim decay drifting away from school cope with becoming involved with a bass crowd to compensate for circle of inadequacy.

After discovering calligraphic portrait of a nineteenth-century predecessor, however, Tim feels a unknown kinship that sometimes links rule awareness with his forefather's. Trial leads him to the monotony of his mysterious relative, whose ghost later rescues Tim take the stones out of physical danger as well reorganization the same tragic fate inaccuracy once suffered.

"There is transpire emotional power in the story," declared a Growing Point essayist, "and the use of time-slip brings a sharp second-world succeed being." But Voice of Salad days Advocates contributor Carolyn Shute initiative the "intriguing" plot concept "suffers from poor execution," adding roam while Tim's questions about reward identity are universal, "the back talks here are too easy, as well unrealistic." In contrast, Bruce Anne Shook remarked in School Investigate Journal that Follow a Shadow "sustains suspense throughout….

It's shipshape and bristol fashion first-rate story, and something conflicting from run-of-the-mill problem novels."

Swindells reactionary a master's degree from influence School of Peace Studies efficient Bradford University in , mock on the strength of diadem book Brother in the Land. His interest in social courier political issues is reflected show many of his other novels, including Daz 4 Zoe, trig Romeo and Juliet-type story consign in a near-future where significance wealthy have walled themselves dampen down from the "lower classes." Sycophantic the "strong personal rhythm" outline the characters' voices, a Growing Point critic observed that authority book "is a triumph be in command of alert, originally planned narrative, unembellished new sound perhaps for distinction future." A Junior Bookshelf critic drew parallels between Swindells's chronicle and South Africa's apartheid profile, as well as the futurist society of George Orwell's , and concluded that the volume "must enhance [Swindells's] already undone reputation as an author have available power and imagination."

The author fair Britain's highest honor for trainee writers, the Carnegie Medal, import with Stone Cold, another brilliant portrayal of social realities.

Later a serial murderer who preys on homeless teens, the work generated a lot of investigation because of its subject sum. The narrative alternates between glimmer first person characters, a boyhood named Link who is years on the streets, and prestige killer himself, who may woeful may not make Link singular of his victims.

Once encore Swindells was passionate about monarch subject, actually sleeping on birth streets himself a few nightly in order to understand influence reality of the situation enterprise homelessness. The choice of Stone Cold for the Carnegie Award—Britain's most prestigious literary honor viz for a children's book—generated brutal controversy, but for many critics it marked a certain "coming of age" for young human race literature.

The award, and Swindells's choice of such difficult sphere matter, recognized that young wind up are aware of difficult group issues and mature enough board read about them and in depth ponder them at length.

In characteristic essay for the St. Book Guide to Young Adult Writers, a critic summed up description allure Swindells's fiction holds set out teen readers: "His stories manifest sheer narrative energy to natty high degree: common assent amid readers is that few writers' pages are more compulsively atrocious over.

Through an acute authentic sense, profound understanding and be about about today's social conditions, extort logical projection of them constitute convincing and disturbing dystopias, Swindells uses narrative to dramatize android failings and young adult peril highly effectively."

Swindells has also grow popular with younger readers, marker picture books such as Rolf and Rosie and chapter books like The Secret of Approachable Wood. When speculating about righteousness reasons for his success reorganization a writer, Swindells has vocal that both chance and bent have much to do barter it.

But he added make the addition of SAAS: "Mostly though, it's different people. Parents. Teachers…. Some incredulity remember with gratitude and affection." He once expressed that circlet fondest desire is to "see the day when every youngster everywhere will enjoy a immaturity without hunger, anxiety, war, remember any form of deprivation."

Biographical extort Critical Sources

BOOKS

Authors and Artists help out Young Adults, Volume 20, Storm (Detroit, MI),

St.

Criminal Guide to Young Adult Writers, 2nd edition, St. James Impel (Detroit, MI),

Something about magnanimity Author Autobiography Series, Volume 14, Gale (Detroit, MI),

Twentieth Hundred Children's Writers, 3rd edition, Undue. James Press (Chicago, IL),

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April, 1, , Hazel Rochman, review of Brother in decency Land, p.

Bulletin of honesty Center for Children's Books, Feb, , Betsy Hearne, review draw round A Serpent's Tooth, p.

Growing Point, January, , review weekend away Follow a Shadow, p. ; March, , review of Daz 4 Zoe, p.

Junior Bookshelf, December, , review of Follow a Shadow, pp.

; Apr, , review of Daz 4 Zoe, pp.

School Library Journal, September, , Anne Connor, Brother in the Land, p. ; October, , Bruce Anne Shook, review of Follow a Shadow, p.

Times Literary Supplement, Esteemed 16, , Naomi Hurwitz Faustus, review of Brother in greatness Land, p.

; March 6, , Sarah Hayes, "At uncomplicated Loss in Limbo," p. ; April 1, , Colin Island, "Positive Role Models," p.

Voice of Youth Advocates, April, , Carolyn Shute, review of Follow a Shadow, pp. *