LoveReading4Kids Says
Frank Cottrell Boyce is one of our funniest, most inventive writers for children and his readers should always be ready to expect the unexpected; that’s certainly the case here. Ted’s birthday starts quietly – he finds his parents fast asleep on the sofa after staying up all night to watch the election. He buys himself a consoling packet of Hula Hoops from the new supermarket at the end of his road, and that’s where things start to go properly weird. There seems to be a link between what he says in the supermarket, and the new prime minister’s policies – could she have some special connection to Ted? The explanation when it comes is very funny! This is a wonderful story that makes you see our world in a different, somehow nicer way. Cate James’s illustrations add to the fun too.
Andrea Reece
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About Frank Cottrell-Boyce
Waterstones Children’s Laureate 2024–2026
A World Book Day Author 2019
Frank Cottrell-Boyce is an accomplished, successful and award-winning author and screenwriter. His books have been shortlisted for a multitude of prizes, including the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, the Whitbread Children's Fiction Award (now the Costa Book Award) and the Roald Dahl Funny Prize and Millions, his debut children's novel, won the CILIP Carnegie Medal 2004.
Millions was was later turned into a film by Danny Boyle and it features in the Book Trust’s 100 Best Books List for 9-11 year olds.
Frank is also a successful writer of film scripts and was the official scriptwriter for the Opening Ceremony for the 2012 Olympics, playing an important role devising the ceremony with Danny Boyle. He is also a judge for the BBC Radio 2 500 Words competition. You can read a great interview with Frank and one of his fellow judge, Francesca Simon here!
He has also created a fantastic trilogy, written with his trademark wit, warmth and sense of story, based upon Ian Fleming's novel, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, comprising Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Race Against Time and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Over the Moon.
His novel The Unforgotten Coat won the 2012 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize.
On winning the prize Frank Cottrell-Boyce said: “It would be amazing to win this award with any book I'd written but it is a special joy to win it with The Unforgotten Coat, which started life not as a published book at all, but as a gift. Walker gave away thousands of copies in Liverpool - on buses, at ferry terminals, through schools, prisons and hospitals - to help promote the mighty Reader Organisation. We even had the book launch on a train. The photographs in the book, were created by my friends and neighbours - Carl Hunter and Claire Heaney. The story was based on a real incident in a school in Bootle. So everything about it comes from very close to home - even though it's a story about Xanadu!
“Being shortlisted for the Guardian Prize gives you a particularly warm glow because it is awarded by a panel of your fellow authors. Past winners include my childhood heroes - Alan Garner, Leon Garfield, Joan Aiken - and contemporary heroes like Mark Haddon, Geraldine McCaughrean and Meg Rosoff.”
He lives with his family in Liverpool.
Read our feature In conversation with Frank Cottrell-Boyce, the new Waterstones Children's Laureate for 2024-26
You can find out a bit more about him and his Chitty Chitty Bang Bang triology at uk.chittyfliesagain.com
More About Frank Cottrell-Boyce
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