Michelle Magorian

Michelle Magorian (born 6 November 1947) is an English author of children's books. She is best known for her second novel, Goodnight Mister Tom, which won the 1982 Guardian Prize for British children's books.

Biography Michelle Magorian was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, and is of Irish descent, her father William Magorian being from County Down, Ireland She lived in Singapore and Australia from age seven to nine. As a child she spent as much time as possible in the Kings Theatre, Southsea.

Her ambition was always to become an actress. After three years of study at the Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama, she spent two years at Marcel Marceau's L'école Internationale de Mime in Paris. From there she launched into a professional acting career and spent a few years touring all over the country - from Scotland to Devon and then Yorkshire - working in repertory companies, taking any part she could. Michelle's worst stage part was playing Orinoco in The Wombles musical. All this time she had been secretly writing stories. When she was 24 she became interested in children's books, and decided to write one herself.

The result was Goodnight Mister Tom. The idea for the book came from the colours in a song from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. She thought of brown as an earthy, old colour and green as a colour of youth. The character of William Beech came into her head because she thought of a beech tree with its slim trunk and it gave her the idea for a slim young boy. Some details for the story came from her mother's tales about her time as a nurse in World War II. She took four-and-a-half years to complete it because she was also working in the theatre. After she had finished the book, she joined a novel-writing class at City Lit, at which she shared the book. It was published by Kestrel Books in 1981 and quickly became an international success. At home Magorian won the annual Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a once-in-a-lifetime award judged by a panel of British children's writers

Just Henry won the 2008 Costa Book Award in the Children's Book category.

Works Goodnight Mister Tom (1981) Back Home (1984) Waiting for My Shorts to Dry (1989) Who's Going to Take Care of Me? (1990) Orange Paw Marks (1991) A Little Love Song (1991) ; U.S. title, Not a Swan In Deep Water (1992) Jump (1992) A Cuckoo in the Nest (1994) A Spoonful of Jam (1998) Be Yourself (2003) Just Henry (2008) Impossible (2014)

Filmography Year Film Role 2011 Just Henry writer (novel) 2001 Back Home writer (novel) 1998 Goodnight Mister Tom writer (novel) 1990 Back Home writer (novel) 1980 McVicar Secretary 1979 An Honourable Retirement Loretta 1978 Lillie (TV series) Cicely Courtneidge