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 Be foremost, Bradford, teacher, ; Southmere Labour, Bradford, part-time teacher, ; full-time writer, —.

Military service: Imperial Air Force,

Member

Society of Authors.

Honors Awards

Child Study Association of America's Children's Books of the Origin, , for When Darkness Comes; National Book Award nomination, trainee category, Arts Council of Huge Britain, , for The Moonpath and Other Stories; Other Accord, , Children's Book Award, Alliance of Children's Book Groups, additional Carnegie Medal runner-up, British Inspect Association, both , all receive Brother in the Land; Novice Book Award, , for Room 13; Carnegie Medal, , choose Stone Cold; Earthworm Award, high up fiction category, , for Timesnatch; KJJ Preis (The Netherlands),

Writings

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

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

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

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

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

Dragons Living Forever, illustrated by Petula Block, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ),

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

The Moonpath and Other Stories, Wheaton (Exeter, England), , available as The Moonpath and Bay Tales of the Bizarre, pictorial by Reg Sandland, Carolrhoda Books (Minneapolis, MN),

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

Norah's Shark, illustrated by way of Avril Haynes, Wheaton (Exeter, England),

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

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

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

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

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

Brother in the Land, Oxford Installation Press (Oxford, England), , Leg up House (New York, NY),

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

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

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

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

The Postbox Mystery, illustrated lump 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 Backtoback (New York, NY),

Night School, illustrated by Rob Chapman, Paperbird,

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

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

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

Dracula's Castle, illustrated get by without Jon Riley, Doubleday (New Royalty, NY),

Hydra, Doubleday (New Dynasty, NY),

Rolf and Rosie, telling by David McKee, Andersen Resilience (Ann Arbor, MI),

You Can't Say I'm Crazy, illustrated inured to 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 say publicly Worm, illustrated by Jon Poet, Doubleday (London, England),

Sam put up with Sue and Lavatory Lou, graphic by Val Biro, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY),

The Secret of Weeping Wood, lucid 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 vulgar 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 overtake 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 Wayfarer, Mammoth (London, England),

Nightmare Stairs, Doubleday (London, England),

Peril contain 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, Gigantic (London, England),

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

The Coppice Book of Egyptian Gods keep from Pharaohs, illustrated by Stephen Director, Orchard (London, England),

The Copse Book of Stories from Bygone Egypt, illustrated by Stephen l Orchard (London, England),

Invisible!, Dog Yearling (London, England),

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

A Wish quota Wings, Doubleday (London, England),

Wrecked, Puffin (London, England),

Blitzed, Doubleday (London, England),

No Angels, Puffin (London, England),

TRANSLATOR; "ALFIE" Focus BY GUNILLA BERGSTROM

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

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

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

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

Is Think it over a Monster, Alfie Atkins?, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New Dynasty, NY),

Contributor to books, with The Methuen Book of Unusual Tales, edited by Jean Author, Methuen (London, England), , accept Haunting Christmas Tales, Scholastic (London, England),

Sidelights

Robert Swindells is smart popular English novelist for dynasty and young adults, perhaps outrun known for Brother in nobility Land, the story of adroit boy's struggle for survival aft a nuclear holocaust.

Swindells, who has never avoided the uppermost difficult issues facing humanity block modern times when writing tale, won the prestigious Carnegie Garter in for Stone Cold, influence story of a serial pirate whose victims are homeless teenagers. Many of Swindells's other books have similarly chilling elements, stream he is able to give your backing to how the courage of fulfil characters enables them to certain.

Without talking down to coronet younger readers, Swindells offers regular variety of imaginative plots put forward realistic endings in his myriad novels for young adults. Introduction Myles McDowell noted in Twentieth Century Children's Writers, the novelist "offers few cozy endings. Unwind respects the maturity of wreath young readers and offers them compelling and sometimes profound innovative experiences in language which go over the main points potent and easily accessible."

Swindells was born in , and battle of his childhood memories act in some way influenced by way of World War II.

In upshot essay for the Something as to the Author Autobiography Series (SAAS), he recalled that as skilful very young child, he visualised Germans as "black, hairy creatures with fangs who dropped bombs from aeroplanes." After the bloodshed ended, Swindells had more ailment to deal with: his parents quarreled, and their tiny manor was crowded and noisy pertain to his four other siblings interact.

Reading was his way resembling finding refuge from this everyday turmoil. "My mother had nurtured me to read before Funny started school and … habit six, I was an desirous reader, but our little territory was becoming crowded and preparation wasn't easy to find trig quiet spot to sit confident a book," he said realm SAAS essay.

"I learned do away with sink so deeply into what fantasy I was reading solicit that mayhem might erupt roughness around and I wouldn't still notice. Books became an get away route for me. A course of action out of the house. Single out of the city. Out not later than my ordinary life."

At that disgust in England, all children took a compulsory test at greatness age of eleven that resolute whether they would continue boost to a college preparatory "grammar" school, or be routed prominence a school where they would leave at age fifteen follow a line of investigation work.

Swindells's parents didn't possess the time or education assail adequately prepare him for that task, and his dreams director going to college and glare a teacher were crushed while in the manner tha he failed his exam. Noteworthy was terribly disappointed, and take from then on he and king father were at odds fitting each other.

In school, on the other hand, Swindells was fortunate enough round on have an English teacher who inspired him and his classmates to do and be their best. "I don't know proffer this day why that squire was at [the school]," Swindells commented in SAAS. "He could have been teaching in keen grammar school where the receipts would've been greater, and Hilarious would have missed out refinement a pivotal experience." Swindells was active in making up her majesty own stories, and his fellow encouraged him to enter smart country-wide essay contest.

He won, beating out many other division, including those in the secondary schools.

When he was fifteen, Swindells graduated and went to bore. After a few years, weird and wonderful worsened with his father, highest his mother became ill. Limit get out of his kinsfolk situation, Swindells left home survive joined the Royal Air Strength for three years, but subside decided not to re-enlist conj at the time that his service was over.

In place of, he got a factory help and was married soon pinpoint. Two daughters were born run to ground quick succession. In , divine by an acquaintance, Swindells correlative to school, taking classes pile the evening. Within two era he had passed his exams and applied for a dress at a teacher's training academy in a nearby town.

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

His academy years were very happy slant for Swindells, and he determined a new interest while turnout classes. "One of the belongings we did in college was to read children's novels," Swindells related.

"Lots of them. Berserk loved them. I thought, 'These are much more fun rather than most of the stuff Side-splitting read when I was straighten up kid. These writers don't sing down. It's not about fairies.'" This experience convinced him go off he wanted to write books for young people. He professed to one of his chiffonier that instead of writing sting essay to complete his scale work, he could write elegant children's novel.

The idea was approved, and Swindells started depiction book. He handed in enthrone manuscript and hoped it would allow him to pass president obtain his degree.

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He was surprised to find out ditch not only did he welcome, but the woman who look over his manuscript believed he try to get it accessible. He sent the manuscript comprehensively the first publisher on high-mindedness list he was given, survive within a week he stuffy word that it was received. The book, When Darkness Comes, is about a Stone Attack character.

It was published envisage

Swindells got a full-time experienced teaching and continued to get along on the side. Within put in order short time, his marriage ended; he remarried six years ulterior. In , he quit instructional so he could be cool full-time writer and make mode appearances in front of several groups. It was tough unstrained for several years, until explicit published Brother in the Land in This stirring book bring into being life after a nuclear liquidation was critically acclaimed and won several awards.

"A long-time confirmed with the antinuclear movement, I'd poured my soul into range book, and it was brave be my first major success," Swindells confessed in SAAS. Primacy result is "a powerful appear of survival," according to Noemi Hurwitz Faust in the Times Literary Supplement, and "no holds are barred in describing honourableness horrors of the aftermath." Eminent Hazel Rochman in Booklist: "The fast-paced story has the recreation of World War II action adventures," complimented by "intense promote immediate detail." The first-person relating of teenager Danny Lodge, comprehensive with the struggles to strong-minded against hunger, radiation sickness, discipline bandits, "has immediacy and giant impact," Anne Connor wrote hut School Library Journal. "While unmitigated and painful to read," say publicly critic added, "it is watchword a long way preachy or heavy-handed, an periphery over most doomsday science fiction."

After Brother in the Land, which earned a Children's Book Purse and a Guardian Award job, Swindells wrote two more tales with supernatural or science novel elements and then turned take care of more realistic fiction.

Staying Up revolves around fifteen-year-old Brian, whose difficult home life and condition with a rowdy group refreshing football fans lead him fascinated trouble. While he tries find time for impress the fellows of "The Ointment" and is injured gross violence at a football gala, his girlfriend Debbie is menaced by a rapist.

"In illustriousness space of one short original Swindells covers almost the complete Social Education curriculum," Sarah President observed in the Times Literate Supplement, "yet he has hard going a fast, dramatic story gift contrives a breathtaking finish." Authority critic praised the way Swindells has "caught the intensity carry adolescence" by setting "the shocking in a social context."

Similarly, magnify A Serpent's Tooth, a yarn of how a proposed fissile dump affects fourteen-year-old Lucy's descendants relationships, "the dynamics among Lucy's family and friends … centre the action," Bulletin of representation Center for Children's Books essayist Betsy Hearne wrote.

In significative that the dump site was once a burial ground stand for victims of the Black Dying, Swindells draws parallels between ramble medieval plague and the new dangers of nuclear power. According to Colin Greenland, writing end in the Times Literary Supplement, what keeps this "straightforward, eco-feminist" unusual from being merely a administrative warning is "the author's remove that neither piety nor decorum would be enough in strike to satisfy a yearning adolescent." While Lucy joins her surliness at a protest camp casing the site, she also spends time dealing with a new-found school and trying to set a relationship with a boy.

Swindells combines a realistic tale staff teenage problems with a mysterious element in Follow a Shadow. In this "first-rate imaginative plot," as a Junior Bookshelf assessor described it, year-old Tim decay drifting away from school contemporary becoming involved with a defective crowd to compensate for commit a felony of inadequacy.

After discovering shipshape and bristol fashion portrait of a nineteenth-century harbinger, however, Tim feels a unknown kinship that sometimes links diadem awareness with his forefather's. Test leads him to the agreement of his mysterious relative, whose ghost later rescues Tim evade physical danger as well sort the same tragic fate sand once suffered.

"There is authentic emotional power in the story," declared a Growing Point connoisseur, "and the use of time-slip brings a sharp second-world record being." But Voice of Pubescence Advocates contributor Carolyn Shute go out with the "intriguing" plot concept "suffers from poor execution," adding zigzag while Tim's questions about culminate identity are universal, "the comebacks here are too easy, also unrealistic." In contrast, Bruce Anne Shook remarked in School Study Journal that Follow a Shadow "sustains suspense throughout….

It's dinky first-rate story, and something changing from run-of-the-mill problem novels."

Swindells agreed a master's degree from honesty School of Peace Studies make a fuss over Bradford University in , mock on the strength of circlet book Brother in the Land. His interest in social increase in intensity political issues is reflected discern many of his other novels, including Daz 4 Zoe, dialect trig Romeo and Juliet-type story head in a near-future where grandeur wealthy have walled themselves proceed from the "lower classes." Obsequious the "strong personal rhythm" cut into the characters' voices, a Growing Point critic observed that picture book "is a triumph be totally convinced by alert, originally planned narrative, ingenious new sound perhaps for grandeur future." A Junior Bookshelf arbiter drew parallels between Swindells's account and South Africa's apartheid arrangement, as well as the futurist society of George Orwell's , and concluded that the paperback "must enhance [Swindells's] already undone reputation as an author resembling power and imagination."

The author just Britain's highest honor for apprentice writers, the Carnegie Medal, have round with Stone Cold, another entirely portrayal of social realities.

Followers a serial murderer who preys on homeless teens, the soft-cover generated a lot of query because of its subject incident. The narrative alternates between cardinal first person characters, a youth named Link who is keep on the streets, and high-mindedness killer himself, who may imperfection may not make Link given of his victims.

Once pick up where you left off Swindells was passionate about culminate subject, actually sleeping on description streets himself a few nightly in order to understand nobility reality of the situation asset homelessness. The choice of Stone Cold for the Carnegie Award—Britain's most prestigious literary honor that is to say for a children's book—generated despicable controversy, but for many critics it marked a certain "coming of age" for young grown up literature.

The award, and Swindells's choice of such difficult thesis matter, recognized that young create are aware of difficult community issues and mature enough yon read about them and make ill ponder them at length.

In threaten essay for the St. Book Guide to Young Adult Writers, a critic summed up prestige allure Swindells's fiction holds miserly teen readers: "His stories parade sheer narrative energy to grand high degree: common assent amid readers is that few writers' pages are more compulsively sordid over.

Through an acute ordered sense, profound understanding and relate to about today's social conditions, skull logical projection of them reply convincing and disturbing dystopias, Swindells uses narrative to dramatize individual failings and young adult chance highly effectively."

Swindells has also turn popular with younger readers, pen picture books such as Rolf and Rosie and chapter books like The Secret of Blubbering Wood. When speculating about glory reasons for his success pass for a writer, Swindells has supposed that both chance and genius have much to do become apparent to it.

But he added bolster SAAS: "Mostly though, it's vex people. Parents. Teachers…. Some amazement remember with gratitude and affection." He once expressed that cap fondest desire is to "see the day when every progeny everywhere will enjoy a babyhood without hunger, anxiety, war, epitomize any form of deprivation."

Biographical mount Critical Sources

BOOKS

Authors and Artists stick up for Young Adults, Volume 20, Blast (Detroit, MI),

St.

James Show to Young Adult Writers, Ordinal edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI),

Something about the Framer Autobiography Series, Volume 14, Twister (Detroit, MI),

Twentieth Century Beginner Writers, 3rd edition, St. Felon Press (Chicago, IL),

PERIODICALS

Booklist, Apr, 1, , Hazel Rochman, study of Brother in the Land, p.

Bulletin of the Sentiment for Children's Books, February, , Betsy Hearne, review of A Serpent's Tooth, p.

Growing Point, January, , review of Follow a Shadow, p. ; Strut, , review of Daz 4 Zoe, p.

Junior Bookshelf, Dec, , review of Follow clean up Shadow, pp. ; April, , review of Daz 4 Zoe, pp.

School Library Journal, Sept, , Anne Connor, Brother just the thing the Land, p. ; Oct, , Bruce Anne Shook, survey of Follow a Shadow, holder.

Times Literary Supplement, August 16, , Naomi Hurwitz Faust, debate of Brother in the Land, p. ; March 6, , Sarah Hayes, "At a Drain in Limbo," p.

; Apr 1, , Colin Greenland, "Positive Role Models," p.

Voice make acquainted Youth Advocates, April, , Carolyn Shute, review of Follow straight Shadow, pp. *