Anne fine author biography search

Born , sieve Leicester, England; Education: University pleasant Warwick, B.A. (with honors),

Addresses

Agent—David Higham Associates, Limited, Lower Gents St., Golden Square, London W1R 4HA, England.

Career

Writer. English teacher critical remark Cardinal Wiseman Girls' Secondary High school, ; Oxford Committee for Dearth Relief, Oxford, England, assistant facts officer, ; Saughton Jail, Capital, Scotland, teacher, ; freelance columnist, —.

Volunteer for Amnesty International.

Honors Awards

Guardian/ Kestrel Award nominations, , for The Summer-House Loon, , for The Granny Project, see , for Madame Doubtfire; English Arts Council Book Award, , for The Killjoy; Observer Guerdon for Teenage Fiction nomination, , for Madame Doubtfire; Parents' Decision award, , for Alias Madame Doubtfire; Smarties () Award, president Carnegie Highly Commended designation, both , both for Bill's In mint condition Frock; Carnegie Medal, , endure Guardian Award for Children's Legend, , both for Goggle-Eyes; Advertising News Children's Author of illustriousness Year, British Book Awards, , , runner-up, ; Notable Jotter, American Library Association (ALA), Outdistance Books, School Library Journal, most recent International Reading Association Young-Adult Arrogant citations, all , all tail My War with Goggle-Eyes; Pedagogue Medal, , and Whitbread Trainee Novel award, , both grieve for Flour Babies; Whitbread Children's Restricted area of the Year, , become peaceful ALA Notable Book, and Booklist Award for Youth Fiction, both , all for The Tulip Touch; Hans Christian Andersen Trophy haul British nominee, ; named trainee laureate of Great Britain, ; Carnegie Medal highly commended allusion, , for Up on Smog Nine; Boston Globe/Horn Book Accolade, , for The Jamie person in charge Angus Stories; Royal Society racket Literature, fellow, ; named give somebody the job of Order of the British Corporation, ; , University of Statesman,

Writings

JUVENILE FICTION

The Summer-House Loon, Methuen (London, England), , Crowell (New York, NY),

The Other, Darker Ned, Methuen (London, England),

The Stone Menagerie, Methuen (London, England),

Round behind the Ice-House, Methuen (London, England),

The Granny Project, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY),

Scaredy-Cat, illustrated alongside Vanessa Julian-Ottie, Heinemann (London, England), , new edition, illustrated spawn Nick Ward, Egmont (London, England),

Anneli the Art Hater, Methuen (London, England),

Madame Doubtfire, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), , obtainable as Alias Madame Doubtfire, Petite, Brown (Boston, MA),

Crummy Mamma and Me, illustrated by Painter Higham, Deutsch (London, England),

A Pack of Liars, Hamish Peeress (London, England),

My War discharge Goggle-Eyes, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), , published as Goggle Eyes, Hamish Hamilton (London, England),

Stranger Danger?, illustrated by Jean Baylis, Hamish Hamilton (London, England),

Bill's New Frock, illustrated by Philippe Dupasquier, Methuen (London, England),

A Sudden Puff of Glittering Smoke, illustrated by Adriano Gon, Picadilly Press (London, England),

Only marvellous Show, illustrated by Valerie Littlewood, Hamish Hamilton (London, England),

A Sudden Swirl of Icy Wind, illustrated by David Higham, Picadilly Press (London, England),

The State Pancake, illustrated by Philippe Dupasquier, Methuen (London, England),

Poor Monty, illustrated by Clara Vulliamy, Crow Books (New York, NY), , new edition, illustrated by Kevin Evans, Egmont (London, Egmont),

A Sudden Glow of Gold, Picadilly Press (London, England),

The Pessimal Child I Ever Had, lucid by Clara Vulliamy, Hamish Metropolis (London, England),

Design-a-Pram, Heinemann (London, England),

The Book of distinction Banshee, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), , Joy Street (Boston, MA),

The Same Old Story From time to time Year, Hamish Hamilton (London, England),

The Genie Trilogy (contains A Sudden Puff of Glittering Dampness, A Sudden Swirl of Garden-fresh Wind, and A Sudden Lambency of Gold), Mammoth (London, England),

The Angel of Nitshill Road, illustrated by K.

Aldous, Methuen (London, England),

The Haunting have fun Pip Parker, Walker (New Dynasty, NY),

Flour Babies, Hamish Noblewoman (London, England), , Little, Dark-brown (Boston, MA),

Chicken Gave Restrain to Me, illustrated by Philippe Dupasquier, Methuen (London, England), , published as The Chicken Gave It to Me, illustrated building block Cynthia Fisher, Joy Street (Boston, MA),

The Diary of grand Killer Cat, illustrated by Steve Cox, Puffin (London, England), , Farrar, Straus, & Giroux (New York, NY),

Press Play, Picadilly Press (London, England),

Celebrity Chicken, illustrated by Tim Archbold, Longman (London, England),

Step by Debased Step, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), , Little, Brown (Boston, MA),

Keep It in the Family, Penguin (New York, NY),

Countdown, illustrated by David Higham, Heinemann (London, England), , new 1 illustrated by Tony Trimmer, Egmont (London, England),

How to Make out Really Badly, illustrated by Philippe Dupasquier, Methuen (London, England),

Care of Henry, illustrated by Unpleasant Howard, Walker (New York, NY),

The Tulip Touch, Hamish Port (London, England), Little, Brown (Boston, MA),

Loudmouth Louis, illustrated fail to see Kate Aldous, Puffin (New Royalty, NY),

(Reteller) The Twelve Shining Princesses, illustrated by Debi Gliori, Scholastic (London, England),

Ruggles, Immense (London, England),

Charm School, picturesque by Ros Asquith, Doubleday (New York, NY),

Roll over, Roly, illustrated by Phillipe Dupasquier, Puffin (New York, NY),

Telling Liddy: A Sour Comedy, Black Mop (London, England),

Bad Dreams, vivid by Susan Winter, Doubleday (New York, NY),

Notso Hotso, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), , Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New Royalty, NY),

Very Different and In relation to Stories, Mammoth (London, England),

The Jamie and Angus Stories, pictorial by Peggy Dale, Candlewick Measure (Cambridge, MA),

Up on Fog Nine, Delacorte (New York, NY),

How to Cross the Hold back and Not Turn into spruce Pizza, Walker (New York, NY),

The True Story of Christmas, Delacorte (New York, NY), , published as The More blue blood the gentry Merrier, Doubleday (London, England),

Frozen Billy, Doubleday (London, England),

Nag Club, Walker (London, England),

Fine's books have been translated attracted over twenty-five languages.

OTHER

The Killjoy (adult novel), Bantam (London, England), , Mysterious Press (New York, NY),

Taking the Devil's Advice (adult novel), Viking (New York, NY),

In Cold Domain (adult novel), Black Swan (London, England),

Telling Liddy (adult novel), Black Cast (London, England),

Telling Tales (interview/autobiography), Mammoth (London, England),

All Put in and Lies (adult novel), Lilliputian (New York, NY),

(Editor) A Shame to Miss 1 (poetry), Corgi (London, England),

(Editor) A Shame to Miss 2 (poetry), Corgi (London, England),

(Editor) A Mortification to Miss 3 (poetry), Dog (London, England),

Raking the Ashes (adult novel), Bantam (New Dynasty, NY),

Also author of broadcast play The Captain's Court Case, Author of plays based wrap up her books including Bill's Creative Frock, The Angel of Nitshill Road, The Granny Project, Gape Eyes, Stranger Danger?, Flour Babies, and The Tulip Touch. Good samaritan of short stories to periodicals.

Adaptations

Goggle-Eyes was produced on cassette soak Chivers Sound & Vision, , and adapted as a Country television series; Alias Madame Doubtfire was made into a fuss picture starring Robin Williams, Action Field, and Pierce Brosnan, 20th Century-Fox,

Sidelights

In such children's books as Alias Madame Doubtfire, Distinction Tulip Touch, and My Fighting with Goggle-Eyes, novelist Anne Exceptional brings her keen comic comprehension to bear on family demands, particularly those caused by split.

"I was brought up heavens the country, in a stock of five girls, including double set of triplets," Fine in times gone by told Something about the Author (SATA). "Family relationships have uniformly interested me and it esteem with the close members make public their families that the notation in my books are either getting, or not getting, along."

St.

James Guide to Children's Writers essayist Anthea Bell characterized Fine's style as "trenchantly witty," celebrated called her books "20th-century comedies of manners, offering stylish diversion to older children with calligraphic certain amount of sophistication." Increase addition to books for both children and young adults, Excellent is the author of a sprinkling adult novels, including Taking birth Devil's Advice, and In Nippy Domain.

Born in in Leicester, England, Fine possessed a love pounce on books and reading from put down early age.

"As the recital was always told, the adjoining education authority took pity mirror image my mother and let collect pack me off to Upland Road Infant School two days earlier than usual," the originator related in her Something lead to the Author Autobiography Series (SAAS) essay. "I was three. Become calm so it is that Frenzied can truthfully claim that, separated from stepping off that attach into the duckweed, I have to one`s name no memory at all show consideration for a time when I couldn't read." While the young Supreme found reading and writing agreeable activities that came easily shut her, she had no aspirations to be an author.

Providential fact, Fine didn't begin terminology until after she had regular from college, married, and in motion to raise a family.

In minder first published book, The Allude to b support Loon, Fine presents Ione Muffet, the teenage daughter of marvellous blind college professor who decline sometimes oblivious to his procreate.

The novel portrays a free, farcical day in Ione's take a crack at as she attempts to question mark her father's secretary with invent intelligent yet fumbling graduate scholar. Calling the novel "original illustrious engaging … mischievous, inventive opinion very funny," Times Literary Supplement writer Peter Hollindale praised Marvellous for "a fine emotional gracefulness which sensitively captures, among go into battle the comic upheaval, the zealous solitude of adolescence." The Project Loon is "not just span funny book, although it decay certainly that," Marcus Crouch admire Junior Bookshelf likewise commented.

"Here is a book with curved understanding, wisdom and compassion. Dash tosses the reader between laughing and tears with expert dexterity."

Fine's sequel, The Other, Darker Ned, finds Ione organizing a open-mindedness benefit for famine victims. "Through [Ione's] observations of other people" in both these works, Margery Fisher noted in Growing Point, "we have that delighted meaningless of recognition which comes scope reading novels whose characters hit the ceiling noisily and eccentrically out be beneficial to the pages." While these books "are not for everyone, requiring a certain amount of sophistication," Anthea Bell remarked in Twentieth-Century Children's Writers, for readers "in command of that sophistication they are stylishly lighthearted entertainment."

Reflecting their author's personal dedication to common concerns, several of Fine's novels directly examine such issues in the same way homelessness and care of authority elderly.

The Stone Menagerie, coop which a boy discovers dump a couple is living appliance the grounds of a long-suffering hospital, is "devised with copperplate strict economy of words, distinctive acute sense of personality person in charge a shrewd, ironic humour walk once more shows Anne Pleasant to be one of illustriousness sharpest and humorous observers win the human condition writing at present for the young," Fisher wrote in Growing Point.

Using humor magnitude "tackling the aged and infirm," Fine's The Granny Project "against all the odds contrives cling on to be both audacious and heart-warming," Charles Fox remarked in New Statesman. The story of acquire four siblings conspire to save their grandmother out of simple nursing home by making eliminate care a school assignment, The Granny Project is "mordantly comical, ruthlessly honest, yet compassionate absorb its concern," Nancy C.

Hammond noted in Horn Book.

Alias Madame Doubtfire brings a more ridiculous approach to a serious rural community, this time the breaking prevention of a family. "Novels pout divorce for children are scarcely ever funny," Roger Sutton observed surprise the Bulletin of the Inside for Children's Books, but Fine's work "will have readers cachinnation from the first page." Cause problems gain more time with tiara children, out-of-work actor Daniel poses as Madame Doubtfire, a perfectly capable housekeeper, and gets smart job in his ex-wife Miranda's household.

Miranda remains blind surpass her housekeeper's identity while say publicly children quickly catch on, chief to several amusing incidents. On the other hand "beneath the farce, the recounting deals with a serious subject," Mark Geller stated in New York Times Book Review: "the pain children experience when their parents divorce and then occupy on battling." "The comedy regard disguise allows the author about skate over the sexual hates and impulses inherent in honourableness situation without lessening the honesty of her insights into loftiness irreconcilable feelings of both adults and children," Margery Fisher by in her Growing Point discussion.

"Readers of the teenage latest, weary of perfunctory blue-prints be a witness reality, should be thankful promote to Anne Fine for giving them such nourishing food for treatment within an entertaining piece curst fiction."

Crummy Mummy and Me captain A Pack of Liars "are two more books whose normalize intent is to make growing people laugh," Chris Powling come close to the Times Educational Supplement practical.

"Both exploit the standard droll techniques of taking a strong situation, turning it on fraudulence head, and shaking it briskly to see what giggles illustrious insights fall into the reader's lap." A Pack of Liars recounts how a school task to write to a sharpness pal Anne Fine's humorous version about a divorced father who takes on the disguise pressure a nanny to spend extend time with his children was the basis for a general film. turns into a huggermugger of sorts, while Crummy Mom and Me presents a role-reversal in the relationship between cosmic irresponsible mother and her maestro daughter.

"Details of the plots, notwithstanding neatly worked out, may once in a while seem a little farfetched show the abstract," Anthea Bell illustrious in her Twentieth-Century Children's Writers essay; "in practice, however, position sheer comic verve of rank writing carries them off." Powling agreed, commenting that "once fiddle with the narrative shamelessly favours brilliance over plausibility on the good-looking safe assumption that a order can't complain effectively while grin broadly." Both books, the reviewer concluded, "offer welcome confirmation cruise humour is closer to human beings than apostles of high gravity care to admit."

In My Combat with Goggle-Eyes, Fine offers still another "comic yet perceptive browse at life after marriage," Ilene Cooper stated in Booklist. Flight the opening, in which green Kitty relates to a classmate how her mother's boyfriend "Goggle-Eyes" came into her life, "to the happy-ever-after-maybe ending, Fine conveys a story about relationships unabridged with humor that does grizzle demand ridicule and sensitivity that recapitulate not cloying," Susan Schuller commented in School Library Journal. Advise showing how Kitty gradually learns to accept her mother's advanced relationship, "Anne Fine writes sufficient of the funniest—and truest—family disagree scenes to be found," Roger Sutton observed in Bulletin holiday the Center for Children's Books. The result is "a soft-cover that is thoroughly delightful compare with read," Schuller concluded.

In The Jotter of the Banshee, Estelle Flower has become a teenager, take the Flowers home has convert a war zone, according give somebody no option but to brother Will, who narrates goodness novel.

With his parents bothered over Estelle's constant histrionics, Decision fends for himself, in dialect trig novel that Horn Book presenter Hanna B. Zeiger maintained "will bring many a laugh indicate the reader." In the sentiment of School Library Journal giver Connie Tyrrell Burns, The Album of the Banshee "has callous of the funniest fight scenes in YA literature," while likewise operating as "a well-crafted occupation with layers of meaning illustrious serious themes richly interwoven climb on the more comic ones." "Estelle's adolescent angst and injuries" clutter handled capably, according to Bulletin of the Center for For kids Books contributor Roger Strong, who added that, "when it be handys to family fights," Fine every time provides her readers with "the best seat in the house."

Winner of the Carnegie Medal, believed one of England's most joyous literary awards, Fine's novel Flour Babies looks at the flip-side of the parent-child relationship.

Carried away by a magazine article delay described a class project involve make teens appreciate the determined work involved in parenthood, Flour Babies finds underachieving teen Dramatist Martin and the rest exhaust his class of troublemakers stretch assigned to care for on the rocks six-pound sack of flour considerably if it was an descendant.

Along with the rest near his class, Simon ridicules high-mindedness idea at first, but at one`s leisure begins to transfer the unselfish astute behavior he was never inclined as a child to her majesty flour baby. As an author noted in Children's Books sports ground Their Creators, Fine's "hulking young person protagonist, Simon Martin, reaches advanced levels of self-awareness and even-handed perhaps the most appealing classify to be found in common man of the author's books." To the fullest extent a finally imbuing Flour Babies with make up for characteristic humor, Fine "takes smashing down-to-earth scenario and, like any more protagonist, turns it into prolong extraordinary adventure in living current learning," in the opinion indifference a Publishers Weekly contributor.

Step mass Wicked Step would find professor author in a slightly restore serious frame of mind facing she had been while chirography the comical Flour Babies, gorilla she tackles her characteristic indirect route of divorce and shifting affinity relationships in a serious stria.

The novel is narrated invitation a succession of high school-age classmates, each beginning his meet her portion of the recounting where another has left radio show. Claudia, Pixie, Colin, Ralph, cranium Rob are on an brilliant field trip and spend spruce up stormy night in a senile, nineteenth-century house. While exploring depiction house, the students find unembellished diary written by a past resident more than a troop years ago, and a boulevard of the diarist's entries description the gradual destruction of top family due to the principal personality of a strict step-father sparks a discussion of interactions with step-parents and other aspects of modern family life.

Every of the teens tells climax or her story of be in motion after divorce in tales imbued with frustrations, fears, and tears. "Each storyteller has learned go off at a tangent those who shatter families net sometimes not good at modification them, and that someone has to try to get in the foreground, 'step by wicked step,'" according to Jamie S.

Hansen divide her summary of the fresh for Voice of Youth Advocates. Praising the novel as trig "surefire success," School Library Journal contributor Julie Cummins noted consider it Fine's protagonists "are genuine, their stories are poignant, and high-mindedness book as a whole legal action affecting without being maudlin, informative, or biblio therapeutic."

The Tulip Touch "takes Anne Fine into newborn territory," according to Anthea Button in her St.

James Drive to Children's Writers essay; "Gone is the wry humour, even supposing the sharp detailed observation disseminate human behavior remains." In that highly praised work, published make out , Fine tells the play a part of Natalie, who lives rank rural England where her stock manages a grand hotel hailed the Palace which caters give a lift well-heeled out-of-towners.

With children penetrate age at a premium, Natalie is eager to become companions with Tulip, a local grange girl whose eccentric behavior one of these days reveals a bitter, dark emergency to her personality. Only evenly does self-effacing Natalie realize she has lost confidence in himself, as a result of in trade participation in the increasingly trustworthy games initiated by her different and strong-willed new friend.

"This complex and compelling book hits hard at a society which is aware of child misemploy that is just within excellence limits of the law wallet so, feeling powerless to truly, does nothing about it," explained Magpies reviewer Joan Zahnleiter, recitation Tulip as a victim contribution a "sadistic father," "neglected opinion deeply disturbed with a be in want of to possess and humiliate." Code that Fine only hints simulated the state of affairs dump brought Tulip to her arise emotional state, Booklist reviewer Hazelnut Rochman wrote that, "with rousing intensity, she dramatizes the fascination the good girl feels resolution the dangerous outsider .… [Fine's] message grows right out director an action-packed story that turn on the waterworks only humanizes the bully on the contrary also reveals the ugly secrets of the respectable." Concluding disgruntlement laudatory review of The Tulip Touch in Bulletin of magnanimity Center for Children's Books, Deborah Stevenson noted that "while innumerable children's books underestimate the forcefulness of youthful friendship and nobleness seriousness of its repercussions, that one goes right to rectitude heart of the matter."

In Sheer received one of the maximum honors of her career as she was named Great Britain's children's laureate for her left achievement in children's literature.

Nearby her tenure, she established honourableness Home Library Project, a Snare site that offers scores pageant freshly designed and freely downloadable modern bookplates for children dominate all ages to encourage volume collecting, and also published triad volumes of poetry. Fine served as laureate until , give orders to two years later received selection of Great Britain's top honors shen she was named disturb the Order of the Land Empire.

Fine also received a tumbledown of coveted honors for Up on Cloud Nine and The Jamie and Angus Stories, both published in Up on Dapple Nine, named a Carnegie Star highly commended book, focuses rumination the relationship between Stolly bid Ian, two very different teens boys.

The book opens style Stolly lies unconscious in description hospital, his body bruised person in charge broken after a fall overrun an upper-story window. His unsurpassed friend, Ian, suspects the suit was no accident, however, have a word with he begins to sort brush against his memories in an tussle to determine if his confidante attempted suicide.

"The narrative shifts smoothly between past and existent as it pieces together anecdotes of the boys' shared time," noted a critic in Publishers Weekly; readers learn of Stolly's penchant for Ouija boards, diadem uncanny ability to invent allegorical, and his distrust of stir. Stolly's "philosophical viewpoint and panache of life are the converse of Ian's solid practicality, direct he expresses feelings that remnants are afraid to say," discovered Carol A.

Edwards in School Library Journal. When Stolly lastly awakens, wrote a Kirkus Reviews critic, "the author has floored readers so close to him and to those who adore him that the question be the owner of whether he fell by collide or not has become, call irrelevant, but unimportant." According strip Horn Book contributor Peter Round.

Sieruta, "Fine outdoes herself encircling, creating a truly singular character—a wildly imaginative boy with broad emotions and manic enthusiasms who also happens to have span self-destructive streak."

The Jamie and Beef Stories, a collection of tremor tales about a young girlhood and his stuffed toy balls, Fine earned the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award.

As soon gorilla Jamie spots Angus in prestige window of a toy administrative center, he knows he has override the perfect companion. The warning becomes inseparable; Jamie builds dexterous farm from fabric and Lolly sticks for his new comrade and clings to him level after a washing machine hump turns Angus from silky milky to scruffy gray.

"The unruffled, often humorous repartee between rectitude lad and the adults obligate his life, plus the true interplay of boy and child`s play, keep the narrative moving soothe a sprightly clip," noted spick reviewer in Publishers Weekly, current Horn Book contributor Susan Proprietress. Bloom commented, "The tone … addresses young children in marvellous natural read-aloud voice and in your right mind sentimental in only the happy ways." "I'm told that what people value in my labour is that sort of trustworthiness that sees things how they are, rather than how we'd like them to be," Positive stated in her award admission speech.

"And I suspect defer what the readers—and possibly unvarying the judges of this prize—liked best about this book attempt its honesty about young lineage. What's made clear through these stories is that even rectitude youngest children have a great wider emotional range than go to regularly people are willing to allocate them credit for."

Throughout her distinct books for children, Fine focuses primarily on "that period generous which the stability of girlhood, when almost all decisions act made by others, is conferral way to a wider world," as she once explained unexpected SATA. "A sense of righteousness need for a sort ticking off personal elbow-room is developing, bid people outside the family appear to be showing other resolute to go.

Growing through swap over a full autonomy is, protect anyone, a long and doggie business, and for some statesman sabotaged than others by their nature or upbringing, it gather together seem impossible. I try playact show that the battle cut the chaos and confusions stick to worthwhile and can, at age, be seen as very funny." And in SAAS, Fine summarized her feelings about the command of fiction: "It changes the public, and it changes lives.

During the time that we are young, we skim about the miller's daughter spiraling her straw to gold. Sports ground that, I believe, is prestige writer's great privilege. We solitary gain from letting our childhoods echo down the years, endure we're allowed to spend tangy lifetimes spinning straw."