John Cunliffe has been involved with children's books as a parent, reader, reviewer, librarian, teacher and author for most of his life. He was a librarian for over thirty years, including two years as British Council Librarian in Yugoslavia. John then moved on to teaching, and eventually became an Advisory Teacher on educational computing. He has had over 200 books published since 1964 and in 1988 began to write full-time. He has written extensively for television, and also presented fifty episodes of "Rosie and Jim", as well as broadcasting on local radio and television for many years.
