Malorie Blackman was the eighth Children’s Laureate and is one of the UK’s most popular children’s authors. She has won, amongst a raft of other prizes, the Children’s Book Award and is the force behind YALC. In 2005 she was honoured with the Eleanor Farjeon Award and in 2008 she received an OBE for services to children’s literature. She has been described by The Times as ‘a national treasure’. She lives in Kent.||Andy Rowland was born on a rainy Sunday in 1962. His parents had a lodger in their spare room and so Andy slept in the coal cellar with the family dog and his two sisters. To pass the time he drew on the walls with pieces of coal and this is what made him decide to become an illustrator. Some or all of the above may not be true. But it is true that Andy still lives in the north of England – or is it?

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