| Michelle Magorian | |
|---|---|
| Born | 6 November 1947 UK |
| Occupation | Novelist |
Michelle Magorian (born 6 November 1947 in Portsmouth, Hampshire) is an English author of children's books, including Goodnight Mister Tom, Back Home and A Little Love Song.
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Michelle Magorian was born in Southsea, Portsmouth. As a child she spent as much time as possible in the King's Theatre in Portsmouth and her ambition was 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 the Womble in a musical. All this time she had been secretly writing stories. In her mid-twenties she became interested in children's books, and decided to write one herself.
The result was Goodnight Mister Tom, published in 1981 a winner of the Guardian Award and the International Reading Association Award. The book was adaoted into a film by ITV in 1998 and has also been the subject of a musical. Since then she has published four more novels, two collections of poetry, a collection of short stories and two picture books.
Michelle wrote Goodnight Mister Tom in a novel-writing class. The idea for the book came from the colours in a song from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour 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. Details for the story came from her mother's tales about her time as a nurse in the World War II. It took Michelle four and a half years to write Goodnight Mister Tom because she was also working in the theatre and upon publication it quickly became an international success.
Michelle followed Good Night Mister Tom with Back Home, another story which was set during the war. However, the main character in Back Home is a young girl; the story details her struggle at being back home in England after five years of living with a family in America as an evacuee.
A Little Love Song (Not a Swan in the USA) is about gaining independence and finding love in wartime Britain.
Most of Michelle's other books are also set in the mid-1900s, often based around theatres.
In 2007, she received an honorary doctorate from Portsmouth University.[1]
Just Henry won the Children's Book category in the 2008 Costa Book Awards.[2]