Aidan Chambers facts for kids
Aidan Chambers (born December 27, 1934 – died May 11, 2025) was a famous British author. He wrote many books for children and young-adult novels. He won big awards for his book Postcards from No Man's Land (1999). These included the British Carnegie Medal and the American Printz Award. In 2002, he also received the international Hans Christian Andersen Award. This award recognized his long-lasting impact on children's literature.
Contents
About Aidan Chambers
His Early Life and Career
Aidan Chambers was born in 1934 near Chester-le-Street, in County Durham, England. He was an only child. Interestingly, his teachers thought he was "slow" at school. He didn't learn to read easily until he was nine years old.
After school, he spent two years in the Royal Navy. This was part of his national service. Later, he became a teacher. He taught for three years at Westcliff High School for Boys in Southend-on-Sea. In 1960, he joined an Anglican monastery in Stroud, Gloucestershire. His young adult novel Now I Know (1987) is partly based on his experiences there.
Becoming a Writer
While he was still a teacher at Archway School in Stroud, Aidan Chambers started writing plays. Some of his first plays were Johnny Salter (1966), The Car, and The Chicken Run (1968).
In 1967, he left the monastery. A year later, he became a full-time writer. He wrote a special series of six novels called the "Dance sequence." These books were published between 1978 and 2005. They include Breaktime, Dance on My Grave, Now I Know, The Toll Bridge, Postcards from No Man's Land, and This is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn.
Aidan and his wife, Nancy, started a company called Thimble Press. They also created a magazine called Signal. Their goal was to promote great books for children and young adults. In 1982, they won the Eleanor Farjeon Award for their amazing work with children's books. From 2003 to 2006, Aidan Chambers was the President of the School Library Association.
Amazing Awards and Honours
Aidan Chambers won two major book awards for his book Postcards from No Man's Land. This book was published in 1999. One award was the Carnegie Medal from the Library Association. This award celebrates the best children's book by a British subject each year. The other award was the Michael L. Printz Award. This award is specifically for young adult literature. He won it for the first US edition of the book, which came out three years later.
He also received several other important awards and honours:
- 1979: Children's Literature Association Award for Literary Criticism
- 1982: Eleanor Farjeon Award for Outstanding Services to Children's Books (shared with his wife Nancy)
- 2002: Hans Christian Andersen Award for his excellent writing.
- 2003: Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy from the University of Umeå
- 2008: Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Gloucestershire
- 2009: Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
- 2010: National Association for the Teaching of English (NATE) Award for Lifetime Services to English Education
- 2011: Honorary Doctorate of Literature from Oxford Brookes University
His Books
Novels for Young Adults
- Cycle Smash (1967)
- Marle (1968)
- Snake River (1975)
- Breaktime (1978)
- Dance on My Grave (1982)
- Now I Know (1987)
- The Toll Bridge (1992)
- Postcards from No Man's Land (1999)
- This is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn (2005)
- Dying to Know You (2012)
Novels for Children
- Seal Secret (1980)
- The Present Takers (1984)
Aidan Chambers also put together and edited many other children's books. Several of these books were about ghosts.
Short Stories
- The Kissing Game: Short Stories of Defiance and Flash Fictions (2011)
