Linda Newbery - Writing

Writing

Linda Newbery is perhaps best known for her young adult novels, several of which have historical settings. Set in Stone is a Gothic mystery in the tradition of Wilkie Collins and the Victorian sensation novel. Set in an Arts and Crafts house on the South Downs, it partly concerns the disappearance of one of four stone-carvings, the West Wind, and the secrets hidden beneath the house's immaculate surfaces. The Shell House links two stories, one set in the present, the other during the First World War, through the setting of a now-ruined house in Epping Forest (based on Copped Hall). Greg, in the present-day story, is horrified to find himself strongly attracted to another boy. In the past, Edmund Pearson, son of the wealthy Pearson family, is looked upon to supply a son and heir, but is secretly in love with another officer, Alex. The two stories are also linked through questions of faith, belief and doubt.

Sisterland also links past and present through the story of Sarah Reubens, a Kindertransport refugee to Northampton, who conceals her Jewish identity. In the present-day story, her granddaughter Hilly slowly realises the truth about "Heidigran's" past, and its implications for her own identity.

Before these novels were published, Linda Newbery wrote two linked trilogies, beginning in 1914 with "Some Other War", about twins Jack and Alice who live in a quiet Essex village. On the outbreak of war, Jack joins the Epping Foresters Regiment (a fictional version of the Essex Regiment which Newbery used again in "The Shell House") and Alice becomes a VAD nurse. "The Kind Ghosts" follows the twins to the 1918 and Armistice, and a third book, "The Wearing of the Green" fits alongside, picking up a minor character in the twins' story, Patrick Leary, and following his story through the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin. We move on a generation for the "Shouting Wind" trilogy, which begins with Kay, Patrick and Alice's daughter, who becomes a WAAF in the Second World War, The Cliff Path follows her hippie daughter Abigail, and A Fear of Heights completes this second trilogy with the life of Abigail's own daughter Tamsin, an engineering student in the 1980s.

Although Newbery is probably best known for her young adult novels, she also writes for younger readers. For children of about 10+, her novels include At the Firefly Gate, Lost Boy, Catcall and Nevermore, all published by Orion. For Usborne Publishing she has written Polly's March and Andie's Moon, part of the Historical House series for which she collaborated with Adele Geras and Ann Turnbull. She has also published a number of short stories and poems.

She has twice been shortlisted for the prestigious Carnegie Medal, for The Shell House (2002) and Sisterland (2003); several of her other novels have been nominated. The Shell House was also shortlisted for the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize in 2002. She won the Costa Children's Book of the Year prize for 2006 (formerly the Whitbread Prize) with her young adult novel Set in Stone, and Catcall was Silver Medal winner in the 2007 Nestlé Children's Book Prize. In 2010 she was awarded an IBBY Honour (International Board on Books for Young People) for The Sandfather.

Linda Newbery's younger books have been illustrated by a range of artists. "Posy", a picture book, is illustrated by the Greenaway Medal winner Catherine Rayner. "Lob", published in 2010, is illustrated by Pam Smy, a lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University.

She was a judge for the Whitbread Book Awards (now the Costa Book Awards) in 2005, and for the Guardian Children's Book Prize in 2007, and has reviewed fiction for the Times Educational Supplement, The Guardian and other publications.