David AlmondFRSL is a British author who has written several novels for children and young adults from 1998, each one receiving critical acclaim. He is one of thirty children's writers, and one of three from the UK, to win the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award. For the 70th anniversary of the British Carnegie Medal in 2007, his debut novelSkellig was named one of the top ten Medal-winning works, selected by a panel to compose the ballot for a public election of the all-time favourite. It ranked third in the public vote from that shortlist.
Early life and education
Almond was born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1951 and raised in neighbouring Felling in Gateshead. His father was an office manager in an engineering factory and his mother a shorthand typist. He was raised Catholic at St Joseph's Catholic Academy and had four sisters and one brother. As a child, he dreamed of becoming a writer and "wrote stories and stitched them into little books." He describes his childhood as one with "much joy" but also "much sadness," losing his younger sister and father at a young age. He was educated at the University of East Anglia and Newcastle Polytechnic. After graduating, Almond worked as a teacher for five years; he then moved to an artists' commune in Norfolk and concentrated on his writing. He returned to Newcastle and worked as a part-time special-needs teacher while editing the literary journalPanurge.
Career
Almond published his first collection of stories in 1985, Sleepless Nights. His second collection, A Kind of Heaven, appeared in 1987. He then wrote a series of stories which drew on his own childhood, and which would eventually be published as Counting Stars, published by Hodder in 2000. In the next seven years, four more novels by Almond made the Carnegie Medal shortlist of five to eight books. Since Skellig his novels, stories, and plays have also brought international success and widespread critical acclaim. They are Kit's Wilderness, Heaven Eyes, Secret Heart, The Fire Eaters, Clay, Jackdaw Summer, and My Name is Mina, a prequel to Skellig. He collaborates with leading artists and illustrators, including Polly Dunbar ; Stephen Lambert and Dave McKean. His plays include Wild Girl, Wild Boy, My Dad's a Birdman, Noah & the Fludd and the stage adaptations of Skellig and Heaven Eyes. Almond's novel The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean was published in two editions: Adult ; and Young Adult. 2012 publications include The Boy Who Swam With Piranhas. In 2013, Mouse Bird Snake Wolf was published. His works are highly philosophical and thus appeal to children and adults alike. Recurring themes throughout include the complex relationships between apparent opposites ; forms of education; growing up and adapting to change; the nature of the "self". He won the Hans Christian Andersen Award for his writing, which biennially recognises the "lasting contribution" of one living author. The jury president, Ms Zohreh Ghaeni from Iran, observed that Almond "writes about children in crisis, while continuously giving hope to them", and cited in particular his first two novels, Skellig and Kit's Wilderness. She called "bibliotherapy" such as she attributed to Almond "a vital activity for all children around the world." When it named him a finalist months before, the international jury cited his "deeply philosophical novels that appeal to children and adults alike, and encourage readers by his use of magic realism". For his body of work Almond was also a British nominee for the Astrid Lindgren Award at the same time. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.
