Since then, I have just read and read - but, that said, I suppose there is a raft of writers to whom I return again and again, not so much because I want to write like them, even if I were capable of it, but simply for a sort of stylistic shot in the arm.

Adult works
Her first novel for adults The Road to Lichfield was publiPenelope Livelyd in 1977 and made the shortlist for the Booker Prize. Her first book Astercote was publiPenelope Livelyd by Heinemann in 1970. Children's fiction
She first achieved success with children's fiction.

She has won both the Booker Prize for British novels (Moon Tiger 1987) and the Carnegie Medal for British children's books (The Ghost of Thomas Kempe 1973).