Award Winners Pack: Ages 9-11 Award-winning team Pack by Malorie Blackman (author), Katie Davies (author), Vivian French (author), Keith Gray (author), Eva Ibbotson (author), Michael Morpurgo (author), Terry Pratchett (author), and Chris Riddell (author) (UK edition)

Malorie Blackman has written over fifty books and is acknowledged as one of today’s most imaginative and convincing writers for young readers. Her best-loved books include the highly acclaimed Noughts and Crosses sequence and Pig Heart Boy, which also became a major BBC TV series. She has been awarded numerous prizes for her work, including the Red House Children’s Book Award, and has also been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. In 2005 she was honoured with the Eleanor Farjeon Award in recognition of her contribution to children’s books, and in 2008 she received an OBE for her services to children’s literature. She has been described by The Times as ‘a national treasure’ and was the Children’s Laureate 2013-15.

Katie Davies was born in Newcastle Upon Tyne in 1978. She studied English and Drama at Warwick University and Acting at East 15. She has written for The Spectator and The Idler, and written and performed various sketches for Radio 4 comedy show, One. Her first children’s novel, The Great Hamster Massacre was published by Simon & Schuster in 2009, followed by The Great Rabbit Rescue and The Great Cat Conspiracy. She’s now working on a collection of poems for and about teenage girls, set in a comprehensive school in Northumberland, where she grew up. Katie lives in North London with her husband.

Eva Ibbotson is the award-winning author of many books for children and adults. She has a daughter and three sons, who showed her that children like to read about ghosts, wizards, and witches “because they are just like people but madder and more interesting.”

She was born in Vienna, in Austria, but moved to England with her family when the Nazis came to power. After training to be a physiologist which she didn’t enjoy because she didn’t like doing experiments on animals, Eva got married and had four very nice children.

Her first children’s book, The Great Ghost Rescue was published in 1975, and she is best known for titles like Journey to the River Sea and The Dragonfly Pool. Eva died in 2010, aged 85.

Michael Morpurgo is a master storyteller, weaving captivating stories full of drama and intensity that are coming to be regarded as true classics. Exploring the most profound subjects with a light yet powerful touch, his books tell unforgettable stories in simple, direct words.

Michael Morpurgo discovered his talent for writing while working as a teacher. “We had to read the children a story every day and my lot were bored by the book I was reading. I decided I had to do something and told them the kind of story I used to tell my kids – it was like a soap opera, and they focused on it. I could see there was magic in it for them, and realised there was magic in it for me.”

Living in Devon, listening to Mozart, and working with children have provided most of the stimulae Michael needs to discover and write his stories. He spends about half his life mucking out sheds with the children, feeding sheep or milking cows; the other half he spends dreaming up and writing stories. “For me, the greater part of writing is daydreaming, dreaming the dream of my story until it hatches out – the writing down of it I always find hard. But I love finishing it, then holding the book in my hand and sharing my dream with my readers.”

Chris Riddell is a writer, artist and political cartoonist for the Observer. His children’s titles include the Goth Girl and Ottoline books, the Muddle Earth series, written with Paul Stewart and picture books for younger children. He has also collaborated with Neil Gaiman on books like the brilliant Fortunately, the Milk.

Chris has won many of the top children’s book prizes, including a Smarties Gold Award and the rare honour of two Kate Greenaway medals. He was recently named the 2015-2017 Children’s Laureate.