Gillian Cross


Gillian Cross is a British author of children's books. She won the 1990 Carnegie Medal for Wolf and the 1992 Whitbread Children's Book Award for The Great Elephant Chase. She also wrote The Demon Headmaster book series, which was later turned into a television series by the BBC in January 1996; a sequel series was produced in 2019.

Biography

Gillian Clare Arnold was born on December 24, 1945 to parents Eric and Joan Arnold. She was educated at North London Collegiate School, Somerville College, Oxford and the University of Sussex. She married Martin Cross in 1967, and they had four children: Jonathan, Elizabeth, Anthony, and Katherine.
Cross's first published book was The Runaway. Three years later she inaugurated The Demon Headmaster series of seven books. She also completed The Dark Behind the Curtain, a horror story illustrated by David Parkins and published by Oxford University Press. It was highly commended for the 1982 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject. A Map of Nowhere was highly commended for the 1988 Carnegie and she won the Medal two years later for Wolf.
Before becoming a full-time writer, Cross held several different jobs, including acting as an assistant to a Member of Parliament. She is now a full-time writer who often travels and gives talks in connection with her work. In early 2014, Cross became a patron for the Leamington Spa-based charity Cord, after their work in Sudan inspired her latest novel, After Tomorrow.

Works

  1. The Demon Headmaster
  2. The Prime Minister's Brain
  3. The Revenge of the Demon Headmaster
  4. The Demon Headmaster Strikes Again
  5. The Demon Headmaster Takes Over
  6. Facing the Demon Headmaster
  7. Total Control
  8. Mortal Danger
  1. The Dark Ground
  2. The Black Room
  3. The Nightmare Game