Chosen by Rob Biddulph, Guest Editor September 2022, as one of his top recommendations - "This was published a few years ago, but Katherine’s books are such favourites in the Biddulph household that I felt the need to tell you about them just in case, for some strange reason, you’ve not read one. I could have chosen any of her titles, but I’ve gone for Rooftoppers because my daughter Poppy told me it was her favourite. It tells the story of Sophie, who as a baby was found floating in a cello case in the middle of the English Channel, and her rescuer (and subsequent father figure) Charles Maxim. His parenting methods might be fairly unorthodox – chips and a drop of whiskey for tea, anyone? – but there is no doubting the love he has for his ward. Their relationship only serves as a backdrop to the main storyline, but it is the bedrock to which the book’s emotional heart is anchored. Trust me, if you read this book you will love it, and become as big a fan of Katherine’s as we are."
My mother is still alive, and she is going to come for me one day. Everyone thinks that Sophie is an orphan. True, there were no other recorded female survivors from the shipwreck which left baby Sophie floating in the English Channel in a cello case, but Sophie remembers seeing her mother wave for help. Her guardian tells her it is almost impossible that her mother is still alive, but that means still possible. You should never ignore a possible. So when the Welfare Agency writes to her guardian threatening to send Sophie to an orphanage, she takes matters into her own hands and flees to Paris to look for her mother, starting with the only clue she has - the address of the cello maker. Evading the French authorities, she meets Matteo and his network of rooftoppers - urchins who live in the sky. Together they scour the city for Sophie's mother before she is caught and sent back to London, and most importantly before she loses hope.
Katherine Rundell is a bestselling author whose novels for children include Rooftoppers, The Wolf Wilder, The Explorer and The Good Thieves. She has won the Costa Children’s Book Award, the Blue Peter Book Award and the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, amongst many others. She was a 2021 World Book Day author and has also published two picture books for children and three non-fiction books for adults, including Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne, winner of the 2022 Baillie Gifford Prize, and The Golden Mole and Other Living Treasure, shortlisted for the 2022 Waterstones Book of the Year. Her books have sold millions of copies worldwide.
Katherine spent her childhood in Africa and Europe before taking her degree at the University of Oxford and becoming a Fellow of All Souls College. As well as writing, she studies Renaissance literature and occasionally goes climbing on the rooftops late at night.
