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Alison was born in Kent and studied art at the Slade School. After teaching for
some years she turned to writing, firstly for children's television before going
on to write children's books for all ages. Her novel, THE SHERWOOD HERO
was joint
winner of The Guardian Children's Fiction Award in 1996 and she enjoyed success
in 2002, winning the Scottish Arts Council Children's Book of the Year prize with
ORANGES AND MURDER. Alison also writes for adults, including poetry, essays and
critically acclaimed biographies of Kenneth Grahame and Hans Christian Andersen.
She has won the Literary Review's Grand Poetry Prize and her new collection was
runner up for the Callum Macdonald Memorial Award. Alison has three grown up children
and lives on the Isle of Arran.
Publications:
THE SUMMERHOUSE
What goes on behind the drawn, secretive blinds of the summerhouse? Abby and her
friends - even tough, suspicious Chokker are desperate to find out. And when Stan,
the irritable owner finally lets them in, the children's curiosity only deepens.
Stan is trying to write a book, but is stuck for ideas. The children make suggestions
- and gradually begin to create another world. A world where they can safely explore
their own dreams and memories - even those they would rather forget. A world where
the police are turning a blind eye to the secretive experiments of a sinister research
institute. Before long, Stan, the children and even their families are finding out
more about themselves and each other than they could ever have expected.
UK: Walker Books 10+
THE FORTUNE TELLER
Mick's mother is widowed and struggling to keep a run-down boarding house. The future
looks bleak, but then she consults a fortune teller, who predicts that Mick will
die. Mick tries to laugh it off, but other parts of the prediction start to come
true. Can he cheat his own destiny?
UK: Hodder Young Adult
ORANGES AND MURDER
People say that Joey's really the son of a lord. Sometimes he wonders if it's true,
but he's busy selling oranges in the market and thinking about a girl called Rose.
But then a man is murdered and when Joey finds himself suspected, he's forced to
go into hiding. And that's when he starts to uncover dark secrets - secrets that
could end up changing everything
UK: OUP 12+
HOW'S BUSINESS
Life in the country has its moments for evacuee Howard Grainger - like the local
auction where he proves that making money is easy, when you know How! And there's
always the cheerful letters from his mother to keep him going… Then the letters
suddenly stop. With just a few pence to his name, How makes the dangerous journey
back to London and begins the desperate search for his mother.
UK: Hodder 10+
BIRD BOY
William's parents have brought The Grange and it soon becomes apparent that it’s
a very strange place: "ever since the Bird Boy went missing," the builder says.
One night William finds a key under the floorboards - leaving it on his bedside
table, it seems to glow in the dark. And the black bird is waiting for him every
time he leaves the house. William must find whatever the key unlocks and unravel
the mystery of the Bird Boy.
UK: Hodder 10+
DEAR DEL
Del is coming to stay. Fran can't wait, stuck on an island - she's been longing
for a friend - someone who understands. But Del is a girl with problems of her own…
UK: Hodder 10+
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN: THE FAN DANCER
Alison Prince takes a controversial line in this new study of the great Danish author.
A new reading of his diaries and letters produces evidence that his emotional stability
and notorious obsession with proving himself a success sprang less from his ugly
duckling rise from obscurity than from a latent and unwillingly recognised homosexuality.
This insight produces a fresh and warmly sympathetic understanding of Andersen's
relentless life and the suffering which imbues his stories.
Rights sold:
DEAR DEL - German
BIRD BOY - Dutch, German
ORANGES AND MURDER - German, Estonia |