Aidan Chambers

• Name — Aidan Chambers • Born — 27 December 1934 • Birthplace — Chester-le-Street, County Durham, England • Died — 11 May 2025 • Period — 1967–2020 • Notable Works — * Breaktime • Dance on My Grave • Now I Know • The Toll Bridge • Postcards from No Man's Land • This Is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn • Awards — * Carnegie Medal for Writing • Michael L. Printz Award • Eleanor Farjeon Award • Hans Christian Andersen Award • Website — aidanchambers.co.uk • Spouse — Nancy Chambers

Born near Chester-le-Street, County Durham on 27 December 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. After two years in the Royal Navy as part of his national service, Chambers trained as a teacher and taught for three years at Westcliff High School in Southend-on-Sea before joining an Anglican monastery in Stroud, Gloucestershire in 1960. His young-adult novel Now I Know (1987) is based partly on his experiences as a monk. 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. Chambers left the monastery in 1967 and became a freelance writer a year later. His works include the "Dance sequence" of six novels (1978 to 2005): Breaktime, Dance on My Grave, Now I Know, The Toll Bridge, Postcards from No Man's Land and This is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn. He and his wife, Nancy, founded Thimble Press and the magazine Signal to promote literature for children and young adults. They were awarded the Eleanor Farjeon Award for outstanding services to children's books in 1982. From 2003 until 2006, he was the president of the School Library Association. Chambers died after a short illness on 11 May 2025, at the age of 90.

• Cycle Smash (1967) • Marle (1968) • Snake River (1975) • Breaktime (1978) • Dance on My Grave (1982) • Now I Know (1987) • The Toll Bridge (1992) • Postcards from No Man's Land (1999) • This is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn (2005) • Dying to Know You (2012)

• Seal Secret (1980) • The Present Takers (1984) Chambers also compiled and edited many other children's books, several concerning ghosts. He edited Ghosts Four under the pseudonym Malcolm Blacklin.

• The Kissing Game: Short Stories of Defiance and Flash Fictions (2011)