Joyce Dunbar

Joyce Dunbar
Born 1944 (age 70–71)
Scunthorpe, England
Occupation Writer
Nationality British
Genre Children's books
Website
joycedunbar.com

Joyce Dunbar (born 1944)[1] is an English writer. She primarily writes books for children, and has published over seventy books.[2] Dunbar is perhaps best known for Tell Me Something Happy Before I Go To Sleep, This Is The Star, and the Mouse And Mole series.[2] She is the mother of the children's writer-illustrator Polly Dunbar.

Biography

Dunbar was born in 1944 in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire,[1] and is one of four children.[3] Her father was a steel-worker and her mother was a fishing net maker.[3] She grew up in Lincolnshire.[4]

Dunbar attended Goldsmiths College in London, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in English.[1] After that, she did several jobs, working as a nanny, a waitress, a barmaid, and a salesperson.[1][3] In 1968, she started working as a teacher in a college drama department of Stratford-on-Avon, England.[1] However, due to her gradual loss of hearing,[1] Dunbar had to stop her teaching career and in 1989, she became a full-time writer.[2]

Dunbar has two grown up children: Ben, a fashion photographer and Polly, an author illustrator.[2][5] Dunbar currently lives in Norwich.[4]

Career

Writing

Dunbar published her first children's book at age 35.[4] In 1985, Dunbar published Mundo and the Weather-Child – a novel about the imaginary friend of a deaf child, which helped her become a runner up for the Guardian Fiction Award.[1] In 1990, her book A Bun for Barney was made into an interactive video game by BBC Multimedia Corporation.[1]

In 1998, she wrote Tell Me Something Happy Before I Go To Sleep, which is recommended as a book to help children feel secure. In 2002 Dunbar did a book tour in the United States to promote this book.[2] Her 2005 picture book Shoe Baby, illustrated by her daughter Polly, was made into a puppet show and is part of the 2006 Brighton Festival.[2]

Dunbar most well-known series, Mouse and Mole, has been adapted into a twenty-six part television animation series by Grasshopper Productions, with voices lent by Alan Bennett and Richard Briers.[2][6]

Other projects

Being a person with a hearing impairment,[7][8] Dunbar has participated in a number of campaigns on behalf of deaf people. In 1998, Dunbar cycled across Cuba in order to raise funds for the National Deaf Children's Society.[3][6] Her journal Cycle Cuba, a record of this event, was published in 1999.[2] That same year, she had a trip to the Himalayas in support of the founding of a new ashram.[3] Dunbar has also taught English writing for children from Greek island Skyros.[6]

Dunbar is on the steering group for the in the Picture project run by SCOPE, which is about the representation of children with disability in picture books.[9]

Selected bibliography

Children's fiction
Panda & Gander Series
Mouse and Mole Series

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Joyce Dunbar biography from biography.jrank.org
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Joyce Dunbar author profile from eastanglianwriters.org
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Author biography from scholastic.com
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Joyce Dunbar interview from Double luck.
  5. ↑ The best new picture book illustrators from The Times
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 The Glass Garden at Google Books
  7. ↑ Joyce Dunbar from Random House
  8. ↑ In the picture from Disability now
  9. ↑ Steering Group from Children in the Picture.

External links