RACHEL ANDERSON
Rachel Anderson began writing, at 17, for The Observer. For the next 50 years, she’s continued to write, first for newspaper and radio journalism, later as novelist, then with fiction for children and young adult readers.
In 1992 she was awarded the Guardian Children’s Fiction prize for Paper Faces.
Her many short stories and novels often involve alienation, social injustices, rejection, loss of parents, mortality, though always approaching these, so-called, difficult subjects with her own gentle touch and poignant humour.
In 1980, with her husband David Bradby, and their children, she met and received into the family an abandoned boy with learning difficulties from a children's home in Southern England. From then on, Rachel's fictions increasingly featured mental handicap (as it was then known) as an acceptable, funny, agreeable, and essential part of all of our lives. Her skilful touch was recognised, in 1990, when she won the Medical Journalists’ Award.
Red Moon (2006) takes a subtle yet provocative approach to the themes of immigration and personal identity. The novel is at once gripping and perceptive, deeply moving and wryly comic.
In her forthcoming Mango Jam, Rachel tells the powerful story of how two determined children, re-housed in a condemned, inner-city, tower-block, take on the UK’s immigration system.
For more information visit www.rachelanderson.co.uk
LATEST BOOK: BLOOM OF YOUTH (First published, 1999, new edition, 2009)
It is the late 1950s: teenagers have barely begun to be invented. Ruth and her older sister Mary struggle with the chaos of their parents' attempts to support five children by renting a rambling country house and running it as a holiday home for children of the rich. When their father dies, their increasingly desperate mother turns her efforts to the two hapless girls. Eager to marry them off, she plunges them into dancing classes and presentation at Buckingham Palace as phoney under-age debs. Instead Mary finds LIFE at art school in a nearby town, with beatniks, jazz poets and dancing in the river. When friends persuade their mother to take the family to a new start in London, Ruth finds that she, too, has other life-plans . . .
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Rachel Anderson has written over thirty books for children, the latest of which are listed here. Please refer to her website for the full bibliography. For New Readers 4-8: Hello Peanut, Hodder Toddlers, 2003. For Keen Readers 7-10: Hugo and the Long Red Arm, A & C Black, 2004. For 10-plus Readers: The Poacher’s Son, Oxford University Press, 1982. Several re-issues, the latest being by Barn Owl Books, 2006. Pizza on Saturday, Hodder Headline, 2004. For Young Adults 12-plus: The War Orphan, O. U. P., 1984. (New ed. 2001),
‘Moving Times’ Trilogy, Hodder Headline:- Bloom of Youth, 1999. (New ed. 2009.) Grandmother’s Footsteps, 1999. (New ed. 2009.) Stronger than Mountains, 2000. (New ed. 2009.) This Strange New Life, O. U. P., 2006. Red Moon, Hodder Headline, 2006. Special Needs: Big Ben, Mammoth, 1998. (1999: T.E.S./NASEN prize: highly commended). Re-issued with new illustrations by Jane Ray, Barn Owl Books, 2007.Joe’s Story, Barrington Stoke, 2001. Foreign Language Editions: The War Orphan. (1) German: Nennen wir ihn doch einfach Robert, Spectrum Verlag, 1986. Re-issued by Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1989.
(2) Danish: Min Bror er fra Vietnam, Sommer & Sørensen, 1987.
(3) Swedish: Krigsbarnet, Berghs Förlag AB, 1988. (4) Dutch: Kind van de oorlog, Infodok, 1988. (5) Mandarin Chinese: Sun Ya Publications, Hong Kong, 1992. Bloom of Youth. Danish: Blomstrende Ungdom, Gyldendal, 2000. Hello Peanut. Korean version: Doosan Dong-A corporation, 2004.
