I've only writen four books for older readers, But I want to explain how I came to write them, it doesn't really matter, because you can enjoy a book without knowing anything about the author, or why he or she chose that theme. On the other hand, it's always interesting if there is a story behind the story, so here goes ..

A long time ago, in 1984, my son Daniel was ten. He wanted to know about what he saw on the news, and at that time there was a big strike in England, when the miners protested about the certain closure of the coal mines that had been the life and livelihood of many, many communities. He saw the anger and sadness of many on the tv news; he saw all the fighting and screaming, and wondered why.

SO - I decided to write a story which would tell him about how ordinary working men first banded together to form unions, to try to protect themselves, their jobs and their families. In English history there was a famous real life story of the 'Tolpuddle Martyrs', Dorset farm workers who, in 1837, tried to ask the rich landowners for more money, and were deported to Australia for their pains.

I changed the English county to the one a live in, Somerset, and set the story in my own village. It's told through the eyes of a modern boy is transported too, but back in time. Mysterious things start to happen when Daniel and his family move to the large old house in the West Country. Daniel feels strangely drawn to the old stove his mother finds behind a wall, but what could possibly be the connection between the boy of twelve living now, and a nineteenth century stove? Daniel plunges into the past and becomes a kitchen skivvy living in 1935, witnessing events that changed the course of history, there are moments of terror, and moments of sadness as Daniel's tries to save his friends from their fate ...

In the end he wonders - what could he have done? Children always write to me desperate to know what happened 'after' the story has finished ... But I want you to tell me what you think became of George, and was Daniel a coward not to take to the road with him? Maybe you could write a different ending ....

THE STOVE HAUNTING is a historical novel - but do you think that peoples inner dilemmas change all that much? What are the ways in which we are different to someone living in 1986? How are we the same? Can one ordinary person change the course of one little bit of history?

I THINK THESE QUESTIONS ARE REALLY INTERESTING TO DISCUSS

OK - So I had written The Stove Haunting, but a few years afterwards my mind kept going back to the famous miners' strike of 1984. So I decided to bring the story of why men and women joined trade unions up to date by writing a story set at the time of that strike.

Of course, the odd thing is, that it, too, is a part of history now.

Anyway, this is the story of two fourteen year olds, Tom and Melanie, who find themselves on opposite sides in a strugggle. That's an old ideafor a plot; have you ever seen 'Romeo and Juliet' by William Shakespeare, or or the musical 'West Side Story'? Their small Yorkshire town is torn apart when the local miners' union calls a strike to protest against the government plans to close the village pit.

People who have lived side by side for years start to hate each other. On one side are the strike breakers and the police; on the other side are the strikers and their supporters. The line has been drawn - and Tom and Melanie, who really like each other a lot, are caught on each side of it. Tom's father leads the 'Scabs' (working miners), and Melanie's father is one of the strike leaders. Some terrible things happen ...

Do they have the courage to fight together when their families are threatened?
Can they go on being friends in a wrecked community?
What price will they pay for their principles?

Some people have read this book and asked me, 'what side are you on?' The answer is, 'neither'. One of the jobs of a writer (and a journalist) is to show complex things are. All these years have shown me that there is generally right on both sides - and when you read A Flower Of Jet I hope that's how you will feel too.

Other readers ask me, why write a story like this (which is - let's be honest - a bit sad) rather than entertaining fantasy? Well, I want to write stories which are about real people, you see - and real life is sometimes sad, sometimes lighthearted, always challenging, always complicated.

I wonder what the boys who read this think they would have said to Melanie's big brother Darren when he was so horrible to Tom? Would you have stood up for yourself, or just left, as Tom did?
I wonder how the girls imagine Melanie's future?
Fantasy stories are wonderful, and comic stories are great - but it's good to read stories which make you wonder what it would be like to be inside the skin of another person living that kind of life.

IF EVERYBODY COULD MAKE THE IMAGINATIVE LEAP RIGHT INTO THE MINDS OF OTHERS, AND TRY TO FEEL AS THEY FEEL - WOULD PREJUDICE BE POSSIBLE?

THIS NOVEL WON A PARENTS' CHOICE GOLD AWARD IN THE UNITED STATES. IT IS ON A SHORTLIST OF THREE IN THE MIDDLE SCHOOL/JUNIOR HIGH CATEGORY IN THE CALIFORNIA YOUNG READER MEDAL PROGRAM.

In 2007 Walker Books re-issued this novel with a new jacket (shown) - as one of their titles endorsed by Amnesty International, 'as contributing to a better understanding of human rights and the values that underpin them.'

I felt this to be a great honour - and so have donated all the proceeds from the book to Amnesty.

To find out more about the important work of this marvellous organisation which works for human rights around the world, visit

www.amnesty.org.uk

In 1989, huge changes swept accross the part of the world we know as Eastern Europe, when, one by one, countries like East Germany and Czechoslovakia declared an end to Communism. Put like that it sounds easy - as if it happened overnight. But of course when the political system shifts and changes it can be like the huge seismic convulsions that contoured the land and the oceans, millions of years ago. Of course people do suffer and die in the process.

Romania lies in the middle of Eastern Europe, and right at the end of 1989 the people rebelled against the harsh regime of Nicolae Ceauscescu. In March 1990 I went to Romania to research my novels for adults, Lost Footsteps, and while I was there (and when I went back in June that year) I met many lovely Romanian people who had so little.

It was just before Easter and I stood in the square in a town called Timisoara, near the Hungarian border. It was bitterly cold and starting to snow. There was a long, long queue of people snaking around the square so I went to the front to see what they were hoping to buy. Was it bread or milk? You have to understand that most of the shops were empty.

Well, this shop had a window piled with nasty broken bits of brown stuff, all white and manky at the edges. At first I couldn't make out what it was. Then my Romanian friend explained it was chunks of chocolate, and the people were queueing in the snow to buy it for their children at Easter.

That same day I met a ten year old boy and promised to send him a present from England. What did he want? He thought and thought, then his eyes lit up and he said, 'A banana!'. It made me feel so sad.

SO - I wanted to write a novel which would make kids in the UK and USA understand what it was like to be those kids. And also how frightening it is when a country changes untterly.

My heroine Flora has her fourteenth birthday during the story. She quarrels with her best friend Alys and has a crush on the mysterious new boy in her class, Daniel Ghiban. Who is he? Why does he have more than the other kids? Why are Flora's parents always whispering?
As she draws closer to the truth, Flora's familiar world crumbles around her. She discovers thather father is in great danger and only she can save his life.

I hope this novel shows the power of the human spirit in the face of overwhelming hardship.
What would it be like to think if of a cheap scarf as a luxurious gift?
Can we blame Daniel Ghiban for what he is like?
What do you think happened to Flora in the end?

I often visit schools and libraries to talk about my work, and the issue of fact versus fiction comes up again and again. Writers sometimes become irritated when people seem to imply that EVERYTHING they write has to be based on something in real life. 'What happened to the power of imagination?' we ask.

So, in The Voices of Silence I created Flora and her family, just as in my novel Lost Footsteps I made up the inside of a Romanian prison. Writers CREATE, they don't just REPORT.

But one of my stories IS based on events that actually happened and I don't mind being honest about that. In 1984, my daughter Kitty (then 14) and I were actively involved in an environmental protest near our home, just outside of Bath, Somerset. A huge by-pass was to be built, and we opposed it - with many other local people and others who came from outside.

Joining The Rainbow tells the story of what happened, and draws on other environmental protests too. Nearly all the characters are based on real people we met, and the heroine Kaz is very like Kitty, with a lot more thrown in! Kitty and I watched with horror as a man we had grown to like very much fell from a very tall tree, and was terribly injured. That happens in the book too.

Kaz falls for a young stranger with dreadlocks called Ash who has come to camp on the hill and oppose the bulldozers. Ash has had such a different life ... and many teenagers have written to me saying they find him a brilliant creation. Anyway, Kaz and her mum get more and more involved in the protest, but it becomes very nasty and dangerous. It makes Kaz grow up a lot as she realises that no matter what they do, the by-pass will certainly be built.

Now, here is a challenge. I defy anyone to read this book and say it is obvious I am on the 'side' of the protesters. After all, the nastiest character in the book is one of the people who oppose the road (he's based on somebody I met too!), because I think it's wrong for any writer to offer up what is in fact a piece of propaganda. I don't believe in black and white answers, but see life in terms of shades of grey.

You will notice that the structure (that is, the plan) of this book is quite complicated. It's meant to indicate the passing of the seasons and the movement of time in general - because everything in the natural world is subject to change. So Kaz must grow up, and accept things - like all of us.

People are complicated, issues are complicated ... so if books make you ponder and puzzle a little time, then that is all good don't you think?
After all, do you WANT everything to be easy?

All these books are published by Egmont. You can order them from the Library, your local bookshop or click on the Amazon logo to buy them online.

LIKE MOTHER, LIKE DAUGHTER?
14 stories about girls and their mums
Kingfisher Books 2006

This is a wonderful collection I edited - which gave me the chance to be in touch with some terrific writers for young people in Britain and the States. The Introduction and very last story are by me.

Then we have a story each by the following writers: Adele Geras, Candice Ransom, Julia Jarman, Shirley Klock, Kate Petty, Amy Boesky, Jean Ure, Linda Newbery, Betty Hicks, Jennifer Kramer, Jenny Land, and Cathy Hopkins - all about the mother-daughter relationship.

The stories by American writers are set in the States, those by the British writers are set in the UK - but my very own story, 'Hot Cool Summer' is about a British girl who finds herself in America when she doesn't want to be there, and goes on a very special journey with her very special Mum......

The stories are, in turn, hilarious, moving, tragic and challenging. I think mothers as well as daughters will enjoy this book, and - who knows - it could be a real talking point between them.

The stories are, in turn, hilarious, moving, tragic and challenging. I think mothers as well as daughters will enjoy this book, and - who knows - it could be a real talking point between them.

Kingfisher (Boston) published this in the States with a different title, taken from Cathy Hopkins's story, 'You Never Did Learn to Knock.' Does that sound like a girl irritated with the mother who insists on coming into her private bedroom without knocking first? Ah, well, you'll find the truth is just a little bit different. ....Read it!