Sally Nicholls was born and grew up in Stockton-on-Tees. After school, she travelled widely, visiting Australia and New Zealand after working in Japan at a Red Cross hospital, before returning to the UK to study Philosophy and Literature at the University of Warwick. After graduating, she studied on the Bath Spa University “Writing for Young People” Master’s degree. She now lived in Oxford.
Her first novel, Ways To Live Forever, was written during this time. It was published by Scholastic in 2008 and went on to win the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize, the Glen Dimplex New Writer of the Year award in Dublin, and a major German award (Die Zeit Luchs des Jahres) for the German language translation by Birgitt Kollmann. It was also shortlisted for the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis (Germany) and the Redbridge Book Awards 2009. It was made into a movie in 2010.
Find Sally on Twitter at @Sally_Nicholls.
An Island of Our Own: Siblings Jonathan, Holly and Davy have been struggling to survive since the death of their mother, and are determined to avoid being taken into care. When the family’s wealthy but eccentric Great-Aunt Irene has a stroke, they go to visit her. Unable to speak or write, she gives Holly some photographs that might lead them to an inheritance that could solve all their problems. But they’re not the only ones after the treasure…
Close Your Pretty Eyes: Eleven-year-old Olivia has been in care since she was five, and is just beginning her sixteenth placement. Her new home is a secluded farmhouse, centuries old, where she slowly bonds with her foster family. But the house holds dark secrets. Olivia discovers that it was once a notorious baby farm, where unwanted children were left to die. She becomes convinced that the place is haunted. She is desperate to save her new family from the ghosts. The danger is real – but does it come from the twisted mind of a very disturbed child? A powerful and thrilling story from one of today’s most exciting young writers.
Ways To Live Forever: “My name is Sam. I am eleven years old. I collect stories and fantastic facts. By the time you read this, I will probably be dead.” Sam loves facts. He wants to know about UFOs and horror movies and airships and ghosts and scientists, and how it feels to kiss a girl. And because he has leukaemia he wants to know the facts about dying. Sam needs answers to the questions nobody will answer. Funny and honest, Ways To Live Forever is one of the most powerful and uplifting books you will ever read.
