Martin Waddell

Martin Waddell
Born Belfast, Northern Ireland
Occupation Writer
Nationality Irish
Genres Children's literature
Notable award(s)

Hans Christian Andersen Award

Smarties Prize

Martin Waddell[1] (born 1941 in Belfast, Northern Ireland) is a prolific, award winning [2]children's author. He has lived most of his life in Newcastle, County Down and is most famous for his engaging Big Bear, Little Bear and Little Dracula series.

Early life and career

As a child, Waddell grew up with a fondness of animals and often told stories in a lively manner. This inspired him and "the love of story" stuck with Waddell ever since. He aspired at a young age to be a football player and signed for Fulham FC youth team - Waddell reflects that he scored a hat-trick on his debut in adult football but wound up as a goalkeeper.

When it became clear to him that his future did not lie as a professional footballer, Waddell turned to his other love and began to write (he would later combine the two in the Napper series of football-centred children's books). Originally writing for adults, his first real success was a comic thriller "Otley", which was made into a film starring Tom Courtney and Romy Schneider. After moving back to Northern Ireland in the late sixties he wrote books that reflected on the changing situation in his native land. Soon his love of storytelling would pull him into the medium of children's literature.

In 1972 he went into a church to stop some vandals and got caught up in an explosion in Donaghadee, Co Down - an experience that took him some years to ovecome. As an author, nearly all of Waddell's stories are inspired by events and/or places in his life at the foot of the Mourne Mountains.[3] As he humorously claimed, "I’ve been blown up, buried alive and had cancer as an adult, and survived all these experiences, so I’m a very lucky man."

In 2004, Waddell was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Children's Literature

References

  1. ^ He also writes under the pen name Catherine Sefton.
  2. ^ He has won "The Smarties Prize" twice for Farmer Duck and Can't you sleep, Little Bear?
  3. ^ Martin Waddell Walker.co.uk. Retrieved on 2-21-09.

External links

Authors: Eleanor Farjeon (1956) • Astrid Lindgren (1958) • Erich Kästner (1960) • Meindert DeJong (1962) • René Guillot (1964) • Tove Jansson (1966) • James Krüss and José Maria Sanchez-Silva (1968) • Gianni Rodari (1970) • Scott O'Dell (1972) • Maria Gripe (1974) • Cecil Bødker (1976) • Paula Fox (1978) • Bohumil Říha (1980) • Lygia Bojunga Nunes (1982) • Christine Nöstlinger (1984) • Patricia Wrightson (1986) • Annie M. G. Schmidt (1988) • Tormod Haugen (1990) • Virginia Hamilton (1992) • Michio Mado (1994) • Uri Orlev (1996) • Katherine Paterson (1998) • Ana Maria Machado (2000) • Aidan Chambers (2002) • Martin Waddell (2004) • Margaret Mahy (2006) • Jürg Schubiger (2008) • David Almond (2010)
Illustrators: Alois Carigiet (1966) • Jiří Trnka (1968) • Maurice Sendak (1970) • Ib Spang Olsen (1972) • Farshid Mesghali (1974) • Tatyana Mavrina (1976) • Svend Otto S. (1978) • Suekichi Akaba (1980) • Zbigniew Rychlicki (1982) • Mitsumasa Anno (1984) • Robert Ingpen (1986) • Dusan Kállay (1988) • Lisbeth Zwerger (1990) • Kveta Pacovská (1992) • Jörg Müller (1994) • Klaus Ensikat (1996) • Tomi Ungerer (1998) • Anthony Browne (2000) • Quentin Blake (2002) • Max Velthuijs (2004) • Wolf Erlbruch (2006) • Roberto Innocenti (2008) • Jutta Bauer (2010)