9th August P. L. Travers (1899 - 1996) Tove Jansson (1914 - 2001) Seymour Simon (1931) Nick Sharratt (1962)

Pamela Lyndon (P.L) Travers was the stage name adopted by an Australian actress who was to become the novelist who became famous for her tales about Mary Poppins, an English nanny who perfected a novel mode of childcare. She left Australia in 1924 for London and only returned once for a short holiday, but Australia still claims her as its own, complete with a brass statue of Mary Poppins in a park in Ashfield, a suburb of Sydney where her family lived for a while.

Tove Jansson is a Finnish novelist, famous for her Moomin books, stories about chubby, lovable Moomintroll who lives in Moominvalley with his mother, Moominmamma and father Moominpapa. She wrote these books in Swedish but they have been translated into English and in print constantly. This year is the 65th anniversary of the first Moomin book and to celebrate a series of picture books, using Tove's original characters and artwork has been published. The first is Moomin and the Birthday Button. These may lead a new generation of children to the Moomin novels, the most popular being Finn Family Moomintroll. Not many book characters end up with a museum and theme park devoted to them!

Seymour Simon is an American non-fiction author whose books have stunning photographs and just the right amount of text for the children I teach. While most are about science the boys at school particularly like his Trucks and Trains. His website is extremely comprehensive and informative.

Lastly, Nick Sharatt is a British author /illustrator whose brightly coloured illustrations are recognised immediately and they always make you smile. He does 'fun books' and even when he illustrates a novel, such as one by Jacqueline Wilson which has a more serious theme the illustrations are still uplifting. He does the illustrations for Kes Gray's Daisy series and has illustrated books for Giles Andreae, Jeremy Strong and Julia Donaldson as well.