Mal Peet
Mal Peet
Mal Peetwas an English author and illustrator best known for young-adult fiction. He has won several honours including the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Prize, British children's literature awards that recognise "year's best" books. Three of his novels feature football and the fictional South American sports journalist Paul Faustino. The Murdstone Trilogyis his first work aimed at adult readers...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionYoung Adult Author
Date of Birth20 June 1947
brass plate
In my seaside town, there is a plethora of benches, each one bearing a little brass plate commemorating a deceased occupant. You sit with ghosts.
teenage tend trying
I tend to boycott all teenage reading while I'm trying to write my own stuff.
sentence
A sentence that clots in your mouth is unlikely to flow in your mind.
Disconnection or alienation from the past has political consequences.
kids
I want to entertain, but I also want to push the barriers beyond what kids are conditioned into accepting.
champagne drink
I want to drink champagne from ladies' shoes.
hopeless literary rather readers shelves
It's a nonsense because, as we all know, there are brilliant 15-year-old readers and hopeless 50-year-old readers. All that categorisation is a matter of bookshop shelves rather than literary categories, I think.
time
I used to play all the time. I would play football when it was light and read when it was dark.
benches human
The very provision of benches by the council or the corporation acknowledges the human need to be private in public, to be conspicuously idle, to have nothing better to do.
avoiding chances cliche describe difficult extremely happens match millions thousands trying week words
It's extremely difficult to describe interestingly what happens on the pitch. Thousands of journalists write millions of words every week trying to do it, so your chances of avoiding cliche are very slim. And you're trying to write fiction, not a match report.
attract inclined readers stories suspicious wider younger
I try to write stories that will attract younger readers and make them feel part of a wider readership. I do not feel able to write books that are about, or even for, teenagers; and I am inclined to be suspicious of books which 'target' them.
asleep bedtime defeats kids nose stuck tend wake
It pretty much defeats the purpose of bedtime reading if you fall asleep before the kids do. And you tend to wake up with a matchbox stuck on the end of your nose and/or a potty on your head.
bit effect moved piece
Football is a bit like chess: it's not just the piece being moved that matters; it's also the effect that move has on all the other pieces.
although belief connected free history passionate rather work
Although I write to entertain, and try to keep my work free of didacticism, I do have a rather passionate belief in our need to be connected to - and to learn from - history.