Janni Howker is a British writer of adult and children's fiction who has adapted her own books for the screen. She has worked across the UK running creative writing workshops for adults and children, and is involved in several arts development programmes.

Life

Howker was born in

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

to a British military family with

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

roots. She lives in a cottage near the "very remote" Scottish border, and several of her books are set in the region, which she calls "my inspiration". The most important may be ''Martin Farrell'', which features a boy caught in the midst of the bloody feuds of the Border Reivers.

Awards

''The Nature of the Beast'' won the 1985 Whitbread Children's Book Award.(past_winners_complete_list.pdf)
. Section "Whitbread Winners 1971–2005". Costa Book Awards. Retrieved 2013-09-09. For ''The Nature of the Beast'' and again next year for ''Isaac Campion'' in 1986, Howker was a highly commended runner-up for the annual Carnegie Medals from the

Library Association The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP, pronounced ) is a professional body for librarians, information specialists and knowledge managers in the United Kingdom. It was established in 2002 as a merger of th ...

, recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject. (From 1979 to 2002 the distinction was approximately annual, with 29 high commendations in a 24-year period including Howker alone for both 1985 and 1986.) * International Reading Award * Tom-Gallon Award * Observer Teenage Fiction Award * Somerset Maugham Award

Works

The U.S. review service '' Kirkus Reviews'' covered at least three of Howker's books (‡). ''Badger on the Barge'' and ''The Topiary Garden'' garnered starred reviews and the service called ''Isaac Campion'' "another glowing novel" and "unforgettable".

Novels

* ''The Nature of the Beast'' (Julia MacRae Books, 1985) * ''Isaac Campion'' (MacRae, 1986)‡ * ''Martin Farrell'' (MacRae, 1994)

Short fiction

* ''Badger on the Barge'' (MacRae, 1984)‡ —collection of five stories (200pp), short-listed for both the Whitbread Children's Book Award and the Carnegie Medal * ''The Topiary Garden'' (MacRae, 1993)‡ —one story from ''Badger on the Barge'', illustrated by Anthony Browne (64pp) * ''Walk with a Wolf'' (Walker, 1997) —children's

picture book A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. With the narrative told primarily through text, they are distinct from comics, which do so primarily through sequential images. The ima ...

illustrated by Sarah Fox-Davies * "Mud" —short story

References

External links

Janni Howker
at

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

Authorities – with 7 catalogue records British children's writers People from Cumbria Living people Alumni of Lancaster University Alumni of Cartmel College, Lancaster Year of birth missing (living people) British women children's writers {{UK-child-writer-stub