Aidan Chambers

For his "lasting contribution to children's literature" he won the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2002.

[3][4] Born near Chester-le-Street, County Durham in 1934, Chambers was an only child, and a poor scholar; considered "slow" by his teachers, he did not learn to read fluently until the age of nine.

His first plays, including Johnny Salter (1966), The Car and The Chicken Run (1968), were published while he was a teacher at Archway School in Stroud.

He and his wife, Nancy, founded Thimble Press and the magazine Signal to promote literature for children and young adults.

[1] The other was the Michael L. Printz Award for specifically young-adult literature, recognising the first US edition published three years later.