This month we are delighted to welcome Geraldine McCaughrean, twice winner of the prestigious Carnegie Medal and one of our most acclaimed and admired children's novelists.

Born in Enfield in North London, Geraldine trained as a teacher and worked in TV and publishing before devoting herself to her writing full time.

In 1988 Geraldine scooped the Carnegie Medal for one of her early novels, A Pack of Lies and she followed this with a succession of original and outstanding stories including The White Darkness, The Kite Rider, Not the End of the World and her penultimate publication, the magnificent Where the World Ends which gave Geraldine a second Carnegie win. Geraldine has also skilfully re-written familiar tales and legends for a young audience - Greek Myths, One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, Cyrano and The Nutcracker. This talent led her to be chosen, from a body of over 100 other authors, to write the official sequel to J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan to mark the centenary of the classic novel. Peter Pan in Scarlet was published internationally in 2006 to wide critical acclaim with proceeds from the book sale benefitting Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. 

Her most recent triumph is The Supreme Lie, a tale of corruption, fake news and environmental disaster at the centre of a darkly comic adventure. It has the team at LoveReading4Kids and LoveReading4Schools raving - it is our Book of the Month on both sites and, as Joy Court said - "This really is vintage McCaughrean and highly recommended!"

She has written over 170 books, translated into 45 languages and is published in 61 countries across the world. Her work is varied, from picture books to early readers to YA fiction, is often funny and always riveting. 

Read on for more about The Supreme Lie and Geraldine has given us her top book recommendations - but first, she writes a letter to her readers...

We were intriguied to learn Geraldine's favourite books!

"Five books I can thoroughly recommend

...a mere handful of those I’ve enjoyed too much ever to lose off my bookshelves.  That may not qualify them as great literature but the words ‘great literature’ are enough to scare off most readers anyway!"

The Little Prince – an illustrated book by Antoine de St Exupery    

I wish I had a name like ‘Antoine de St-Exupery’ – and I wish I had written this strange and lovely masterpiece.  I read it first in school, in French – which lent a hazy quality to a story of stars, sadness and friendship ... but it’s just as good in English!  A crashed pilot meets a small boy in the middle of a desert, who wants to tell him about a flower...

St-Ex himself flew off into the sky one day, was lost and never found. But this book of his outlived him and will outlast many lifetimes.

If you’re between 5 and 95, The Little Prince is a joy.

A Light in the Attic  by Shel Silverstein   9 - adult

This is a glorious collection of poems, wise and funny.  Shel’s illustrations are part and parcel of his poems.

I go back to them again and again, to remind myself of a joke or a picture or a smackerel of wisdom.

How many slams in an old screen door?

Depends how loud you shut it.

How many slices in a bread?

Depends how thin you cut it.

How much good inside a day?

Depends how good you live 'em.

How much love inside a friend?

Depends how much you give 'em.

Web Wabbit  by Lissa Evans  7-13

When the tedious bedtime story,  The Land of the Wimbley Woos, turns horrible real, Fidge finds herself trying to prevent a really unhappy ending.

It’s funny and clever, dark ...and awfully important that Wed Wabbit shouldn’t win!  I’ve seen it enjoyed by 6 yearolds, but its clever allusions to other books would be appreciated by adults, so... a book for anyone, really.

Millions by Frank Cottrell-Boyce  10 - adult

 Great plot, witty words... but the characters are the reason you’ll love and remember this.  (Especially the saints.)

... or should I recommend Framed instead?   ..It’s no good: I just can’t separate these two books – I refuse to! -  they’re both as good as each other.  The man’s a genius.

Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve    11 - adult

I reckon the inside of Philip Reeve’s head must be the size of a small country. Inside there are airships, cities on wheels, hurtling trains, half-human robots and black holes.

Begin with Mortal Engines, because if it grabs you, there are continuation and spin-off books enough to keep you busy for a year. ..And then there’s RailHead – a different, equally fraught, futuristic maelstrom of adventure.  

And publishing in April 2021, Geraldine has selected The Outlaws Scarlett & Browne, as her bonus recommendation (it's a great favourite of ours too!);  The heroes of The Outlaws Scarlett & Browne by Jonathan Stroud don’t have an easy time of it. Dangers and horrors pelt them like hail. There’s barely a let-up in the relentless terrors of a post-apocalytic England. Monstrous creatures, and even more monstrous humans, dog every move of gun-toting Scarlett and the weird boy she has to keep rescuing.  He’s an annoying pest who’s slowing her down. Or is he? The more she – and we – learn of Albert, the more remarkable he proves to be...

He’s a splendid creation. Special powers can often take the humanity out of character: well, they’re impervious to danger, aren’t they?  But Albert is both vulnerable and afraid. It’s a tale of opposites, jostling along until they are both altered by their journey.

It’s a brilliant representation of English towns, countryside and people all radically altered by the ferocious threats to their safety that have plagued them for years.

Scary, violent and gruesome in parts, this is a story which doesn’t relent for a moment, so you’ll need to hang on tight – and also hope that our real-life Future looks nothing like this one when it arrives. 

Thanks Geraldine! We loved your choices!

You can find a selection of Geraldine's many books below, plus we have been lucky enough to ask her a few questions about her superb new novel, The Supreme Lie, her Carnegie wins and lockdown reads!