Eva Ibbotson
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| Eva Ibbotson | |
|---|---|
| Born | Maria Charlotte Michelle Wiesner January 21, 1925 Vienna, Austria |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | English |
| Writing period | 1965-present |
| Genres | Children's literature, romance |
Eva Ibbotson (born Maria Charlotte Michelle Wiesner, 1925, Vienna, Austria) is a British novelist specializing primarily in children's and young adult fiction.
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[edit] Personal Life
Eva Ibbotson was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1925. When Hitler came into power, Ibbotson's family moved to England.
She attended Bedford College, graduating in 1945; Cambridge University from 1946-47; and the University of Durham, from which she graduated with a diploma in education in 1965.
Ibbotson had intended to be a physiologist, but was put off by the amount of animal testing that she would have to do. Instead, she married and raised a family, returning to school to become a teacher in the 1960's.[1]
Ibbotson is widowed with three sons and a daughter.
She has always wanted to be on the Radio show "Desert Island Discs" and her fans hope she will someday fulfill her wish.
[edit] Career
Ibottson began writing with the television drama Linda Came Today, in 1965. Ten years later, she published her first novel, The Great Ghost Rescue.
Ibbotson has written numerous books including The Secret of Platform 13, Journey to the River Sea, Which Witch?, Island of the Aunts, and Dial-a-Ghost. She won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize for Journey to the River Sea, and has been a runner up for many of major awards for British children's literature. The books are imaginative and humorous, and most of them feature magical creatures and places, despite the fact that she disliked thinking about the supernatural, and created the characters because she wanted to decrease her readers' fear of such things. Some of the books, particularly Journey to the River Sea, also reflect Ibbotson's love of nature. Ibbotson wrote this book in honor of her husband (who had died just before she wrote it), a former naturalist. The book had been in her head for years before she actually wrote it. Ibbotson said she dislikes "financial greed and a lust for power" and often creates antagonists in her books who have these characteristics. Some have been struck by the similarity of "Platform 9 3/4" in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books to Ibbotson's The Secret of Platform 13, which came out three years before the first Harry Potter book.
Her love of Austria is evident in works such as The Star Of Kazan and A Song For Summer. These books, set primarily in the Austrian countryside, display the author's love for nature and all things natural.
[edit] Books
Children's Fiction
- The Great Ghost Rescue (1975)
- Which Witch? (1979)
- The Worm & the Toffee Nosed Princess (1983)
- The Haunting of Hiram C. Hopgood (1987)
- Not Just a Witch (1989)
- The Secret of Platform 13 (1994)
- Dial-a-Ghost (1996)
- Monster Mission (1999)
- Island of the Aunts (2000 - a re-titling of Monster Mission)
- Journey to the River Sea (2001)
- The Haunting of Granite Falls (2004 - a re-titling of Haunting of Hiram C Hopgood)
- The Star of Kazan (2004)
- The Beasts of Clawstone Castle (2005)
- Dial a Ghost (2008)
- The Dragonfly Pool (2008)
- The Haunting of Hiram (2008)
Other Fiction
- A Countess Below Stairs (1981, published as The Secret Countess in 2007)
- Magic Flutes (1982)
- A Company of Swans (1985)
- Madensky Square (1988)
- A Glove Shop in Vienna and other Stories (1992)
- The Morning Gift (1993)
- A Song for Summer (1997)
Ibbotson's non-children's books have been classified both as Young Adult titles and as romances. In an interview, she referred to them as books for adults [2]. Several of these books have been published in other languages with different titles.
[edit] Film and Television
In 1965, Ibbotson wrote Linda Came Today for television; in 1978, she also wrote Der Große Karpfen Ferdinand und andere Weihnachtsgeschichten for German television.
Currently, Enda Walsh is adapting Island of the Aunts for a feature film.[3] An adaptation of The Great Ghost Rescue is also in production,[4] and Gail Gilchriest is adapting The Haunting of Hiram C. Hopgood.[5]
[edit] External Links
- Eva Ibbotson at the Internet Movie Database
- "Author of the month: Eva Ibbotson", The Guardian
- Penguin Reading Guide: Eva Ibbotson
- Summaries of each Eva Ibbotson book
