Sally Gardner

Sally Gardner is a British children's writer and illustrator. She won both the Costa Children's Book Award and the Carnegie Medal for Maggot Moon (Hot Key Books, 2012).

Sally Gardner is the daughter of two lawyers, raised in Birmingham. She has severe dyslexia, diagnosed at 12 and didn't learn to read until she was 14. But she did very well in art college and then in drama college, and worked as a theatre set designer before turning to illustration and writing. She lives in London.

Her first book as a writer was published by Orion Books in 1993: The Little Nut Tree, a children's picture book that she also illustrated. Her first full-length novel was a breakthrough, as I, Coriander won the Smarties Prize in 2005 (reader category 9–11 years). It is set in Cromwellian London and tells the story of Coriander, the unhappy daughter of a silk merchant.

The Red Necklace: A story of the French Revolution and its sequel The Silver Blade are set primarily in France during the Revolution and the Reign of Terror, also in contemporary London. They feature an aristocratic girl and a gypsy boy who are 12 and 14 years old when the story opens. The boy Yann has been trained to assist a stage magician but has or develops genuine magic powers; a starred review (unusually good) by the American service Kirkus labels even The Red Necklace fantasy.

The Double Shadow is historical fantasy that opens in 1937 Britain.Tinder (2013) is a historical novel set during the Thirty Years War.

...
Wikipedia