Elizabeth Laird (author)


Elizabeth Laird is a British writer of children's fiction and travel. She is also known for the large body of folktales which she collected from the regions of Ethiopia. Her books have been translated into at least fifteen languages.

Biography

Laird was born in New Zealand in 1943. She was the fourth child of her Scottish father and New Zealand mother. The family settled in Purley, near London in 1945. A fifth child was born in 1947. He suffered severe disabilities and died in 1949. Laird's first children's novel, Red Sky in the Morning, was inspired in some measure by her father's life.
Laird has been a judge of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction since its inception in 2010.
Laird has won the Children's Book Award and has been shortlisted five times for the Carnegie Medal for British children's literature.

Selected works

Young adult