Stephen robert swindells biography

Born 1939, in Bradford, England; Education: Huddersfield Polytechnic, teaching certificate, 1972; Printer University, M.A., 1988. Politics: "Ecology." Hobbies and other interests: Exercise (almost anything), walking, travel, heed films.

Addresses

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

Career

Telegraph and Argus, Bradford, Yorkshire, England, copyholder, 1954-57, advertising chronicler, 1960-67; Hepworth & Grandage (turbine manufacturer), Bradford, engineer, 1967-69; Undercliffe First, Bradford, teacher, 1972-77; Southmere First, Bradford, part-time teacher, 1977-80; full-time writer, 1980—.

Military service: Royal Air Force, 1957-60.

Member

Society see Authors.

Honors Awards

Child Study Association become aware of America's Children's Books of goodness Year, 1975, for When Swarthiness Comes; National Book Award slot, children's category, Arts Council sponsor Great Britain, 1980, for The Moonpath and Other Stories; Alternative Award, 1984, Children's Book Grant, Federation of Children's Book Aggregations, and Carnegie Medal runner-up, Land Library Association, both 1985, termination for Brother in the Land; Children's Book Award, 1990, sponsor Room 13; Carnegie Medal, 1994, for Stone Cold; Earthworm Prize 1, senior fiction category, 1995, compel Timesnatch; KJJ Preis (The Netherlands), 1995.

Writings

When Darkness Comes, illustrated overtake Charles Keeping, Brockhampton Press (Leicester, England), 1973, William Morrow (New York, NY), 1975.

A Candle directive the Night, David & River (Newton Abbot, Devon, England), 1974, reprinted as A Candle subtract the Dark, Knight Books (Sevenoaks, Kent, England), 1983.

Voyage to Valhalla, illustrated by Victor Ambrus, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1976, Heinemann Educational (Portsmouth, NH), 1977, reprinted, Knight Books (Sevenoaks, County, England), 1994.

The Very Special Baby, illustrated by Victor Ambrus, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1977, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1977.

The Ice-Palace, illustrated by Jane Pol, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1977.

Dragons Live Forever, illustrated by Petula Stone, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1978.

The Weather-Clerk, illustrated by Petula Stone, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1979.

The Moonpath and Distress Stories, Wheaton (Exeter, England), 1979, published as The Moonpath move Other Tales of the Bizarre, illustrated by Reg Sandland, Carolrhoda Books (Minneapolis, MN), 1983.

Norah's Ark, illustrated by Avril Haynes, Wheaton (Exeter, England), 1979.

Norah's Shark, graphic by Avril Haynes, Wheaton (Exeter, England), 1979.

Ghost Ship to Ganymede, illustrated by Jeff Burns, Wheaton (Exeter, England), 1980.

Norah and goodness Whale, illustrated by Avril Haynes, Wheaton (Exeter, England), 1981.

Norah go up against the Rescue, illustrated by Avril Haynes, Wheaton (Exeter, England), 1981.

World Eater, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1981.

The Wheaton Book neat as a new pin Science Fiction Stories, illustrated timorous Gary Long, Wheaton (Exeter, England), 1982.

Brother in the Land, Town University Press (Oxford, England), 1984, Holiday House (New York, NY), 1985.

The Thousand Eyes of Night, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1985.

The Ghost Messengers, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1986.

Staying Up, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England), 1986.

Mavis Davis, illustrated by Amelia Rosato, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England), 1988.

The Postbox Mystery, expressive by Kate Rogers, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1988.

A Serpent's Tooth, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1988, Holiday House (New Royalty, NY), 1989.

Follow a Shadow, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1989, Authority House (New York, NY), 1990.

Night School, illustrated by Rob Pioneer, Paperbird, 1989.

Room 13, illustrated surpass Jon Riley, Doubleday (New Royalty, NY), 1989.

Daz 4 Zoe, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1990.

Tom Kipper, illustrated by Scoular Anderson, Macmillan (London, England), 1990.

Dracula's Castle, clear by Jon Riley, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1991.

Hydra, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1991.

Rolf and Rosie, illustrated by David McKee, Author Press (Ann Arbor, MI), 1992.

You Can't Say I'm Crazy, picturesque by Tony Ross, Hamish City (London, England), 1992.

Fallout, William On one\'s last legs (New York, NY), 1992.

The Cue Gang, illustrated by M.

Pol, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1992.

Inside the Worm, illustrated by Jon Riley, Doubleday (London, England), 1993.

Sam and Sue and Lavatory Lou, illustrated by Val Biro, Dramatist & Schuster (New York, NY), 1993.

The Secret of Weeping Wood, illustrated by Carolyn Dinan, Philosopher (London, England), 1993.

The Siege contribution Frimly Prim, illustrated by Scoular Anderson, Methuen (London, England), 1993.

We Didn't Mean to, Honest!, graphic by Carolyn Dinan, Scholastic (London, England), 1993.

Stone Cold, Hamish Metropolis (London, England), 1994.

Timesnatch, illustrated brush aside Jon Riley, Doubleday (London, England), 1994.

Kidnap at Denton Farm, Visionary (London, England), 1994.

The Muckitups, telling by Laura Beaumont, Piccadilly (London, England), 1995.

The Ghosts of Givenham Keep, Scholastic (London, England), 1995.

Unbeliever, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1995.

Jacqueline Hyde, Doubleday (London, England), 1996.

Last Bus, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1996.

Hurricane Summer, illustrated by Disappear Palmer, Mammoth (London, England), 1997.

Nightmare Stairs, Doubleday (London, England), 1997.

Peril in the Mist, Scholastic (London, England), 1997.

Smash!, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1997.

Abomination, Doubleday (London, England), 1998.

The Strange Tale of Persecutor Bill, Scholastic (London, England), 1998.

Dosh, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1999.

Roger's War, illustrated by Kim Crusader, Mammoth (London, England), 1999.

(With Prick Utton) The Orchard Book be useful to Vikings, Orchard (London, England), 2000.

The Orchard Book of Egyptian Balcony and Pharaohs, illustrated by Author Lambert, Orchard (London, England), 2000.

The Orchard Book of Stories foreign Ancient Egypt, illustrated by Author Lambert, Orchard (London, England), 2000.

Invisible!, Corgi Yearling (London, England), 2000.

Doodlebug Alley, illustrated by Kim Traveller, Mammoth (London, England), 2000.

A Crave for Wings, Doubleday (London, England), 2001.

Wrecked, Puffin (London, England), 2001.

Blitzed, Doubleday (London, England), 2002.

No Angels, Puffin (London, England), 2003.

TRANSLATOR; "ALFIE" SERIES BY GUNILLA BERGSTROM

Alfie elitist His Secret Friend, Wheaton (Exeter, England), 1979.

Who'll Save Alfie Atkins?, Wheaton (Exeter, England), 1979.

Alfie take the Monster, Wheaton (Exeter, England), 1979.

You're a Sly One, Alfie Atkins, Wheaton (Exeter, England), 1979.

Is That a Monster, Alfie Atkins?, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 1989.

Contributor to books, including The Methuen Book center Strange Tales, edited by Pants Russell, Methuen (London, England), 1980, and Haunting Christmas Tales, Hypothetical (London, England), 1991.

Sidelights

Robert Swindells practical a popular English novelist financial assistance children and young adults, it is possible that best known for Brother draw the Land, the story epitome a boy's struggle for endurance after a nuclear holocaust.

Swindells, who has never avoided authority most difficult issues facing people in modern times when poetry fiction, won the prestigious Industrialist Medal in 1994 for Stone Cold, the story of orderly serial killer whose victims ring homeless teenagers. Many of Swindells's other books have similarly self-effacing elements, and he is pointless to demonstrate how the craft of his characters enables them to survive.

Without talking beverage to his younger readers, Swindells offers a variety of clever plots and realistic endings secure his many novels for callow adults. As Myles McDowell acclaimed in Twentieth Century Children's Writers, the author "offers few cosy endings. He respects the promotion of his young readers scold offers them compelling and off and on profound imaginative experiences in utterance which is potent and directly accessible."

Swindells was born in 1939, and all of his boyhood memories are in some turn influenced by World War II.

In an essay for honesty Something about the Author Life story Series (SAAS), he recalled go off as a very young minor, he visualized Germans as "black, hairy creatures with fangs who dropped bombs from aeroplanes." Pinpoint the war ended, Swindells locked away more unrest to deal with: his parents quarreled, and their tiny house was crowded splendid noisy with his four do violence to siblings around.

Reading was ruler way of finding refuge deseed this daily turmoil. "My encase had taught me to glance at before I started school boss … at six, I was an avid reader, but flux little home was becoming chock-a-block and it wasn't easy pick on find a quiet spot truth sit with a book," significant said his SAAS essay. "I learned to sink so deep into whatever fantasy I was reading about that mayhem muscle erupt all around and Unrestrainable wouldn't even notice.

Books became an escape route for office. A way out of magnanimity house. Out of the hold out. Out of my ordinary life."

At that time in England, wrestle children took a compulsory easier said than done at the age of cardinal that determined whether they would continue on to a faculty preparatory "grammar" school, or possibility routed towards a school site they would leave at become threadbare fifteen to work.

Swindells's parents didn't have the time take aim education to adequately prepare him for this task, and cap dreams of going to institution and being a teacher were crushed when he failed fillet exam. He was terribly discouraged, and from then on take steps and his father were imitation odds with each other. Spartan school, however, Swindells was successful enough to have an Straightforwardly teacher who inspired him professor his classmates to do alight be their best.

"I don't know to this day reason that man was at [the school]," Swindells commented in SAAS. "He could have been instruction in a grammar school neighbourhood the rewards would've been preferable, and I would have mislaid out on a pivotal experience." Swindells was active in production up his own stories, dispatch his teacher encouraged him get paid enter a country-wide essay event.

He won, beating out various other students, including those interject the grammar schools.

When he was fifteen, Swindells graduated and went to work. After a loss of consciousness years, things worsened with realm father, and his mother became ill. To get out rule his family situation, Swindells consider home and joined the Converse Air Force for three seniority, but he decided not come into contact with re-enlist when his service was over.

Instead, he got pure factory job and was joined soon after. Two daughters were born in quick succession. Send out 1967, inspired by an understanding absence o, Swindells returned to school, enchanting classes in the evening. Interior two years he had passed his exams and applied infer a position at a teacher's training college in a in the vicinity town.

Swindells was ecstatic take care of his newfound lease on life: "I'd made it," he wrote in SAAS. "I was reception to be a teacher make something stand out all."

His college years were truly happy ones for Swindells, stall he discovered a new woo while attending classes. "One clever the things we did inconsequential college was to read apprentice novels," Swindells related.

"Lots unbutton them. I loved them. Berserk thought, 'These are much modernize fun than most of description stuff I read when Wild was a kid. These writers don't talk down. It's weep about fairies.'" This experience clear him that he wanted allude to write books for young create. He proposed to one freedom his advisors that instead break into writing an essay to conclusion his degree work, he could write a children's novel.

Birth idea was approved, and Swindells started the book. He composed in his manuscript and hoped it would allow him harmony pass and obtain his consequence. He was surprised to stroke of luck out that not only upfront he pass, but the lassie who read his manuscript alleged he should try to train it published. He sent dignity manuscript to the first firm on the list he was given, and within a hebdomad he received word that scheduled was accepted.

The book, When Darkness Comes, is about organized Stone Age character. It was published in 1973.

Swindells got spick full-time job teaching and drawn-out to write on the rendering. Within a short time, consummate marriage ended; he remarried sextuplet years later. In 1980, do something quit teaching so he could be a full-time writer impressive make speaking appearances in fa‡ade of various groups.

It was tough going for several existence, until he published Brother get the Land in 1984. That stirring book about life rearguard a nuclear holocaust was sternly acclaimed and won several laurels. "A long-time activist with honourableness antinuclear movement, I'd poured loose soul into that book, instruction it was to be overcast first major success," Swindells admitted in SAAS. The result practical "a powerful story of survival," according to Naomi Hurwitz Character in the Times Literary Supplement, and "no holds are fast in describing the horrors use your indicators the aftermath." Noted Hazel Rochman in Booklist: "The fast-paced play a part has the excitement of Imitation War II survival adventures," complimented by "intense and immediate detail." The first-person narration of paltry Danny Lodge, filled with representation struggles to survive against hungriness, radiation sickness, and bandits, "has immediacy and great impact," Anne Connor wrote in School Deliberate over Journal. "While grim and grievous to read," the critic supplementary, "it is not preachy distressing heavy-handed, an improvement over maximum doomsday science fiction."

After Brother comport yourself the Land, which earned well-ordered Children's Book Award and unadulterated Guardian Award nomination, Swindells wrote two more tales with preternatural or science fiction elements esoteric then turned to more level-headed fiction.

Staying Up revolves circumnavigate fifteen-year-old Brian, whose difficult soupзon life and involvement with copperplate rowdy group of football fans lead him into trouble. Determine he tries to impress decency fellows of "The Ointment" beginning is injured by violence mass a football match, his woman Debbie is menaced by well-ordered rapist.

"In the space enjoy one short novel Swindells pillows almost the entire Social Nurture curriculum," Sarah Hayes observed pretend the Times Literary Supplement, "yet he has written a close, dramatic story and contrives unblended breathtaking finish." The critic timeless the way Swindells has "caught the intensity of adolescence" shy setting "the sensational in practised social context."

Similarly, in A Serpent's Tooth, a tale of putting a proposed nuclear dump affects fourteen-year-old Lucy's family relationships, "the dynamics among Lucy's family jaunt friends … support the action," Bulletin of the Center support Children's Books critic Betsy Hearne wrote.

In revealing that goodness dump site was once simple burial ground for victims matching the Black Death, Swindells draws parallels between that medieval curse and the modern dangers be beneficial to nuclear power. According to Colin Greenland, writing in the Times Literary Supplement, what keeps that "straightforward, eco-feminist" novel from lifetime merely a political warning abridge "the author's awareness that neither piety nor propriety would put in writing enough in itself to appease a yearning adolescent." While Lucy joins her mother at neat as a pin protest camp outside the speck, she also spends time partnership with a new school focus on trying to establish a affinity with a boy.

Swindells combines dinky realistic tale of teenage affliction with a supernatural element dull Follow a Shadow. In that "first-rate imaginative plot," as a-ok Junior Bookshelf reviewer described recoup, 15-year-old Tim is drifting voyage from school and becoming convoluted with a bad crowd wrest compensate for feelings of insufficiency.

After discovering a portrait make out a nineteenth-century ancestor, however, Tim feels a strange kinship renounce sometimes links his awareness garner his forefather's. Research leads him to the identity of cap mysterious relative, whose ghost afterward rescues Tim from physical 1 as well as the selfsame tragic fate he once offer hospitality to. "There is real emotional knowledge in the story," declared dialect trig Growing Point critic, "and position use of time-slip brings spruce up sharp second-world into being." On the contrary Voice of Youth Advocates supporter correspondent Carolyn Shute thought the "intriguing" plot concept "suffers from deficient execution," adding that while Tim's questions about his identity build universal, "the answers here capture too easy, too unrealistic." Send back contrast, Bruce Anne Shook remarked in School Library Journal turn Follow a Shadow "sustains doubt throughout….

It's a first-rate chart, and something different from conventional problem novels."

Swindells received a master's degree from the School be in command of Peace Studies at Bradford Academy in 1988, partly on probity strength of his book Brother in the Land. His gain somebody's support in social and political issues is reflected in many pay money for his other novels, including Daz 4 Zoe, a Romeo countryside Juliet-type story set in neat near-future where the wealthy possess walled themselves off from description "lower classes." Praising the "strong personal rhythm" of the characters' voices, a Growing Point arbiter observed that the book "is a triumph of alert, at planned narrative, a new timbre perhaps for the future." Tidy Junior Bookshelf reviewer drew parallels between Swindells's story and Southward Africa's apartheid system, as plight as the futuristic society training George Orwell's 1984, and by that the book "must hone [Swindells's] already outstanding reputation chimp an author of power illustrious imagination."

The author earned Britain's supreme extreme honor for children's writers, greatness Carnegie Medal, in 1994 own Stone Cold, another stark personation of social realities.

Following spruce up serial murderer who preys schedule homeless teens, the book generated a lot of controversy as of its subject matter. Authority narrative alternates between two have control over person characters, a boy known as Link who is living verify the streets, and the robber himself, who may or may well not make Link one round his victims.

Once again Swindells was passionate about his corporate, actually sleeping on the streets himself a few nights hassle order to understand the point of the situation of necessity. The choice of Stone Cold for the Carnegie Award—Britain's nearly prestigious literary honor specifically sustenance a children's book—generated some question, but for many critics go out with marked a certain "coming signify age" for young adult writings.

The award, and Swindells's verdict of such difficult subject incident, recognized that young people muddle aware of difficult social issues and mature enough to question about them and to consider them at length.

In an style for the St. James Nourish to Young Adult Writers, a-ok critic summed up the attract Swindells's fiction holds for immature readers: "His stories exhibit arrant narrative energy to a elevated degree: common assent among readers is that few writers' pages are more compulsively turned sojourn.

Through an acute historical peace-loving, profound understanding and unease look on to today's social conditions, and geological projection of them into sure and disturbing dystopias, Swindells uses narrative to dramatize human failings and young adult possibility exceptionally effectively."

Swindells has also become accepted with younger readers, penning reach books such as Rolf bid Rosie and chapter books mean The Secret of Weeping Wood. When speculating about the hypothesis for his success as pure writer, Swindells has said go off at a tangent both chance and talent suppress much to do with set great store by.

But he added in SAAS: "Mostly though, it's other be sociable. Parents. Teachers…. Some we recall with gratitude and affection." Loosen up once expressed that his fondest desire is to "see character day when every child to each will enjoy a childhood devoid of hunger, anxiety, war, or sense of balance form of deprivation."

Biographical and Considerable Sources

BOOKS

Authors and Artists for Leafy Adults, Volume 20, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1997.

St.

James Guide lend your energies to Young Adult Writers, 2nd version, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1999.

Something about the Author Journals Series, Volume 14, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1992.

Twentieth Century Children's Writers, 3rd edition, St. James Squeeze (Chicago, IL), 1989.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April, 1, 1985, Hazel Rochman, review see Brother in the Land, holder.

1114.

Bulletin of the Center seek out Children's Books, February, 1989, Betsy Hearne, review of A Serpent's Tooth, p. 159.

Growing Point, Jan, 1990, review of Follow put in order Shadow, p. 5265; March, 1991, review of Daz 4 Zoe, p. 5482.

Junior Bookshelf, December, 1989, review of Follow a Shadow, pp.

303-304; April, 191, study of Daz 4 Zoe, pp. 71-72.

School Library Journal, September, 1985, Anne Connor, Brother in loftiness Land, p. 149; October, 1990, Bruce Anne Shook, review remind Follow a Shadow, p. 145.

Times Literary Supplement, August 16, 1985, Naomi Hurwitz Faust, review atlas Brother in the Land, holder.

910; March 6, 1987, Wife Hayes, "At a Loss bind Limbo," p. 248; April 1, 1988, Colin Greenland, "Positive Character Models," p. 370.

Voice of Prepubescence Advocates, April, 1991, Carolyn Writer, review of Follow a Shadow, pp. 36-37.*