Berlie Doherty facts for kids
Berlie Doherty (born 6 November 1943) is an English writer. She creates novels, poems, plays, and scripts for TV. She is most famous for her books for young people. She has won the important Carnegie Medal twice for her amazing stories. Doherty has also written novels for adults, plays, and the words for children's operas, called a libretto.
Contents
How Berlie Became a Writer
Berlie Doherty was born in Liverpool, England, in 1943. She was the youngest of three children. When she was four, her family moved to Hoylake. This town later became the setting for some of her books.
Her father, a railway clerk who also wrote poetry, encouraged her to write. He would tell her bedtime stories and they often made them up together. From the age of five, Berlie's own poems and stories were printed in local newspapers. Her father would type them up for her. She dreamed of being a writer, and her father helped that dream grow.
Berlie went to Upton Hall Convent School. She later studied English at the University of Durham and social science at the University of Liverpool. After starting her own family, she trained to be a teacher. A creative writing class she took inspired her first novel for adults.
Before becoming a full-time writer, Doherty worked as a social worker and a teacher. She also spent two years writing and producing shows for schools on BBC Radio Sheffield. Many of these radio shows later became popular books.
A Career in Writing
Berlie started writing for newspaper children's pages when she was five. She stopped when she turned fourteen. She began writing seriously again when her own children started school. Her first book, How Green You Are!, was published in 1982. A year later, she became a full-time writer.
Her books cover many different genres, or types of stories. Some of her stories are about real-life problems young people face.
- Dear Nobody (1991) is about the challenges of becoming a parent at a young age.
- The Snake-Stone (1995) is about adoption.
- Abela: The Girl Who Saw Lions (2007) is about the difficult lives of children in Africa.
Other books are inspired by history. Street Child (1993) is set in London in the 1860s. Some stories are based on her own family. Granny Was a Buffer Girl (1986) tells the story of how her parents got married.
Inspired by Places
The places where Berlie has lived often appear in her books. She loves how Thomas Hardy wrote about people in their landscapes, and she does this too. She lives in the Peak District in Derbyshire, and many of her books are set there.
For example, Children of Winter (1985) is based on the true story of Eyam, a village that suffered from the plague. Her book Deep Secret (2004) tells the story of two villages that were flooded to create the Ladybower Reservoir.
Doherty often works with young people when she is writing. She reads her stories to them and listens to their ideas. She believes that "children are the experts and I can always learn from them."
Writing for Stage and Screen
Doherty has written many plays for radio. She says radio is a wonderful way to tell stories because it lets the writer and the listener use their imaginations.
She has also written plays for the theatre. Two of her novels, White Peak Farm and Children of Winter, were turned into television shows. She also wrote a TV series for schools called Zzaap and the Word Master.
Stories and Music
Some of Berlie's stories are meant to be performed with music. She has written the words (the libretto) for three children's operas. She also wrote stories to be read aloud during live music performances by the Lindsay String Quartet. Two of these, The Midnight Man and Blue John, were later published as picture books.
Awards and Recognition
Berlie Doherty is one of only a few authors to win the Carnegie Medal twice. This award is given to the best children's book of the year in the U.K.
- She first won in 1986 for Granny Was a Buffer Girl.
- She won again in 1991 for Dear Nobody.
Dear Nobody also won awards in Japan and for its script. The Guardian newspaper has called it a classic book for young teens.
In 2004, her book White Peak Farm won the Phoenix Award. This award is for a great children's book that didn't win a major prize when it was first published 20 years earlier.
Personal Life
Doherty lives with another children's writer, Alan Brown. She has two daughters who have worked with her on her books. Janna illustrated some of her books, and Sally created music for her stories.
A Selection of Her Works
Novels for Young Readers
- How Green You Are! (1982)
- White Peak Farm (1984)
- Children of Winter (1985)
- Granny Was a Buffer Girl (1986)
- Dear Nobody (1991)
- Street Child (1993)
- The Snake-Stone (1995)
- Deep Secret (2004)
- Abela: The Girl Who Saw Lions (2007)
- Treason (2011)
- Far from Home: The Sisters of Street Child (2015)
Picture and Story Books
- Tilly Mint Tales (1984)
- The Midnight Man (1998)
- Fairy Tales (2000)
- The Nutcracker (2002)
- Blue John (2003)
Novels for Adults
- Requiem (1991)
- The Vinegar Jar (1994)
