Katherine Rundell facts for kids
{{Infobox person | image = katherine rundell 2020 2.jpg | caption = Katherine Rundell in 2020 | birth_date = 10 July 1987 | birth_place = Pembury, England | alma_mater = St Catherine's College, Oxford
All Souls College, Oxford
| occupation =
- Author
- playwright
- academic
| module = Writing career
Katherine Rundell (born July 10, 1987) is a talented English author and a scholar. She is famous for writing exciting books for young readers. Her book Impossible Creatures was named the Waterstones Book of the Year in 2023.
Katherine also wrote Rooftoppers, which won the Waterstones Children's Book Prize and the Blue Peter Book Award for Best Story in 2015. It was also considered for the Carnegie Medal, a big award for children's books. She is a Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, which means she is a respected member of that university. She has also appeared on BBC Radio 4 shows as an expert guest.
Some of her other popular books include The Wolf Wilder (2015) and The Explorer (2017). The Explorer won the children's book prize at the Costa Book Awards. In 2022, her book Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne won the Baillie Gifford Prize, making her the youngest person ever to win this important award for non-fiction. In 2024, she was named Author of the Year at the British Book Awards.
Contents
| Genre | Children's literaturen's fiction, non-fiction |
|---|---|
| Notable works | Rooftoppers (2013), The Explorer (2017), Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne (2022), Impossible Creatures (2023) |
| Notable awards | Boston Globe–Horn Book Award Costa Book Award Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction |
Katherine Rundell's Early Life
Katherine Rundell was born in Kent, England, on July 10, 1987. She spent ten years of her childhood in Harare, Zimbabwe, because her father was a diplomat there. When she was 14, her family moved to Brussels, Belgium.
She found this move quite a change. She once said that in Zimbabwe, school ended early, she didn't wear shoes, and there wasn't much "teenage culture." She and her friends spent their time climbing trees and having swimming races. Moving to Belgium was a big difference for her.
Katherine studied at St Catherine's College, Oxford from 2005 to 2008. During this time, she became interested in climbing on rooftops! She was inspired by an old book from 1937 called The Night Climbers of Cambridge, which was about university students' adventures climbing buildings.
Her Academic Journey
After finishing her studies, Katherine became a Fellow in English Literature at All Souls College, Oxford. This is a very special position. She once shared that the application process included a three-hour exam where she had to write about just one word: "novelty." She joked that they might have let her in despite her answer, not because of it!
She also earned a special degree called a doctorate. Her research was about the writer John Donne.
Her Writing Career
Katherine Rundell's first book, The Girl Savage, came out in 2011. It tells the story of Wilhelmina Silver, a girl from Zimbabwe who goes to an English boarding school after her father passes away. A slightly changed version was released in the United States in 2014 as Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms. This book won the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for fiction in 2015.
Rooftoppers and Its Adventures
Her second book, Rooftoppers, was published in 2013. It follows the exciting adventures of Sophie, a girl who was found as a baby after a shipwreck. Sophie believes her mother survived the disaster. She searches for her mother by exploring the rooftops of Paris. She also tries to avoid officials who want to send her to an orphanage in Britain.
Rooftoppers won several awards, including the Waterstones Children's Book Prize and the Blue Peter Book Award for Best Story. It was also nominated for the Carnegie Medal. The book was translated into French and won the Prix Sorcières Junior novels category in France.
Other Amazing Stories
Katherine's third novel, The Wolf Wilder, came out in 2015. This story is about a girl named Feodora. She helps prepare wolf cubs, which rich Russians keep as pets, to be released into the wild when they get too big.
Her play, Life According to Saki, won an award in 2016 and was performed in New York in 2017.
Her fourth novel, The Explorer, was published in 2017. It's a survival story about a group of children whose plane crashes in the Amazon rainforest. They uncover a secret while trying to survive. This book won the Costa Book Award in the Children's Book category. Katherine even ate tinned tarantulas as part of her research for the book! It also won the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award.
Rundell's fifth novel, The Good Thieves, tells the story of a girl named Vita. She travels from England to New York with her mother to care for her grandfather.
In 2022, she published Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne. This book is about the famous writer John Donne. It won the Baillie Gifford Prize, a very important award for non-fiction books. Critics praised her writing style in this book. Katherine gave her prize money to charities that help ocean conservation and refugees. She said, "No man is an island," quoting a famous line from John Donne.
Her most recent fantasy adventure, Impossible Creatures, won the British Book Award Children's Fiction Book of the Year.
Katherine Rundell's Personal Interests
Katherine Rundell has some unique hobbies! She enjoys tightrope walking and walking on rooftops. She has said that she starts each day with a cartwheel. She believes reading is similar to cartwheeling because "it turns the world upside down and leaves you breathless."
