British author Richard Platt was born in Northumberland in 1953. He started writing when aged 27 with how-to articles and books about photography. By 1992 he had begun writing non-fiction books for children, initially collaborating with Stephen Biesty in a successful series that capitalized on the illustrator's facility for cross-sectional drawings. Since then, Richard Platt has gone on to complete some 60 more books for UK publishers Oxford University Press, Kingfisher, Dorling Kindersley and Walker Books/Candlewick Press. Most have been for children and young people, though he also writes books for adults on maritime themes, especially smuggling.[1]
An example of his books is the 2001 Pirate Diary: The Journal of Jake Carpenter. Pirate Diary is the story of a young man struggling to survive on a pirate ship. He sees the good, the bad and the ugly, which educates the reader on historical issues of piracy. This is consistent with most of his books.