When I was little I lived in two wild bits of England: near the wild Cornish cliffs of Land’s End and in the middle of Devonshire moorland on Dartmoor. I spent hours poking around in rock pools and lifting up stones to see what was underneath, because I was always nosy. (Everyone in the world is born curious, and if you’re lucky, you stay that way forever.) As an adult, I lived in London for a long time, but now I’m back in the far west of England, near Land’s End — and I’m still nosy.
That’s why I write information books — there’s always something else to find out about, and writing about a thing is the best way to find out about it. I started writing information books when my own children were little. I couldn’t find the sort of book I wanted them to read, so I wrote one of my own. I’ve written about all sorts of things: from influenza to Antarctic exploration, from giant squid to the ancient Egyptians. What am I most interested in? That’s easy—it’s whatever I’m writing about at the moment.
Three Things You Might Not Know About Me:
1. My favorite place to be is lying tucked up warm in bed, listening to the rain and the wind outside lashing against the windows.
2. I like food—my daughter’s first word was “more,” and my son’s first word was “cake,” so I think they must take after me!
3. I can speak cat—at least, I can to my own two cats.
