Philippa Pearce author page

Philippa Pearce biography

Philippa Pearce was an English author known for her contributions to children’s literature. She attended Girton College, Cambridge, where she read English and History. Pearce worked as a producer at the BBC and later as an editor at Oxford University Press and André Deutsch.

Pearce’s first novel, Minnow on the Say, was published in 1955 and was commended for the Carnegie Medal. Her most acclaimed work, Tom’s Midnight Garden, appeared in 1958 and won the Carnegie Medal the same year. The novel has been adapted for radio, television, stage, and film.

Other notable books by Pearce include A Dog So Small (1962), The Children of the House (1968), The Battle of Bubble and Squeak (1978), which won the Whitbread Children’s Book Award, and The Way to Sattin Shore (1983). She also wrote short stories, including the collection What the Neighbours Did and Other Stories (1972).

Pearce served as a judge for the Whitbread Prize and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. In 1991, she received the British Library Association’s Carnegie Medal for Tom’s Midnight Garden as part of the Medal’s 50th anniversary celebration, recognising it as one of the top ten winning works.

Pearce’s final book, A Finder’s Magic, was published in 2008.