Elizabeth Laird
Website:
www.elizabethlaird.co.ukBRAW network:
yesLL funded:
yesAgent:
Hilary DelamereBiography:
Elizabeth Laird was born in New Zealand in 1943 but she grew up in Britain. She has lived in many parts of the world, including Ethiopia, Malaysia, Iraq and Lebanon. She now lives in Britain with her husband, David McDowall, who is also a writer. Some of Elizabeth's novels are set in Britain, and deal with the problems and concerns of young people growing up today. Others are set in Kurdistan, Ethiopia, Lebanon and Pakistan. She has also written two historical novels, and many shorter novels and picture books for younger children.
Elizabeth has won the Scottish Arts Council Children's Book of the Year Award and has been shortlisted for the Costa Award, the Blue Peter Award and four times for the Carnegie Medal. Her books have been translated into more than fifteen languages.
About writer's work:
I enjoy writing on a breadth of subjects. Working abroad in Africa and the Middle East has been the spur to some of my work. Increasingly, I am turning to historical themes, particularly where events in the past have the power to illuminate what is happening in the world today.
About writer's events and projects:
I now make school visits very rarely, but am willing to consider undertaking readings and talks both to children and teachers/librarians throughout Scotland.
Language:
EnglishAge groups:
9-12, Teens, AdultsBooks written
Secret serpents, devilish demons, mysterious magicians -- the folk tales of Iraq teem with otherworldly creatures, magic and earthy humour. Award-winning novelist Elizabeth Laird has gathered ...
Secret serpents, devilish demons, mysterious magicians -- the folk tales of Iraq teem with otherworldly creatures, magic and earthy humour. Award-winning novelist Elizabeth Laird has gathered ...
12-year-old Karim Aboudi and his family are trapped in their Ramallah home by a strict curfew. Israeli tanks control the city in response to a Palestinian suicide bombing. Karim longs to play ...
Outside the home of the Aboudi family in the Palestinian city of Ramallah, an Israeli tank blocks the street. Armed troops have kept the inhabitants trapped indoors for two weeks. 12-year-old Karim, ...
Beatrice is carrying a beautiful bunch of bananas on her head to take to her granddad. She sets off on the jungle path but unfortunately a giraffe accidentally flicks his tail and brushes the ...
Beautiful Bananas ia an imaginative picture book in the African folktale tradition. A little girl sets off through the jungle to take a beautiful bunch of bananas to her grandfather. On the way she ...
Next to your family, friends are the most important people in your life. But friends come in many guises - school friends, imaginary friends, animal friends, even someone in your own family. This ...
This story is about two boys, two faiths, and one unholy war. When Adam's mother dies unconfessed, he pledges to save her soul with dust from the Holy Land. Employed as a dog-boy for the local ...
Peter was having so much fun exploring the cave that he didn't notice what the rest of his family were doing, so when the car starts up he had a terrible shock. Had his parents really driven off and ...
"It's good that I've found this place. I can come here and make plans. My main plan for the future is my dream home. It's very tall and thin. A tower, really. There'll be a lift to whiz me up to ...
"It's good that I've found this place. I can come here and make plans. My main plan for the future is my dream home. It's very tall and thin. A tower, really. There'll be a lift to whiz me up to ...
It's Jani's first day at school and she's nervous. Will the other monkeys be friendly? Will they all stare at her? Jani is in a wheelchair, and this makes her different. But, thanks to her sense of ...
Tara had seen refugees on TV. She never imagined she could become one of them. Tara is an ordinary teenager. Although her country is caught up in a war, the fighting seems far away. It hasn't really ...
Taken from their home in Pakistan to work in the Persian Gulf, eight-year-old Rashid and his little brother Shari cling to each other. Then they are separated and forced to become jockeys in the ...
Taken to work in a strange country, Rashid and his little brother Shari cling to each other. Then they are separated and forced to become jockeys in the lucrative camel-racing business. Rashid is ...
For millennia, Somalia has been crossed and recrossed by camel caravans of merchants bringing stories with them. Elizabeth Laird heard most of these oral retellings in Jigjiga, the capital of ...
The first in a new series of "OneCity" books (crime and London to follow in 2009), this is a cracking collection of specially commissioned stories for upper primary school children, by nine ...
Her life was perfect - from the outside. "As I stood in the gallery at Paradise End, gazing down into the huge, sunlit hall, I felt the beauty of the house wrap itself around me. I knew ...
Illustrated by Shirin Adl
Iran has mountains striped with snow, dense forests where bears and lynxes still roam, deserts, bazaars...but above all it has stories - of fairies and ...
"I sometimes wonder if I would have loved Ben quite so much if Mum hadn't shown me his feet first. She lifted up the edge of his coverlet, and I saw his tiny, perfect miniature toes, pink as ...
"I sometimes wonder if I would have loved Ben quite so much if Mum hadn't shown me his feet first. She lifted up the edge of his coverlet, and I saw his tiny, perfect miniature toes, pink as ...
Sometimes, being a friend takes courage... "It's crazy, starting at a new school. For days you feel so new and lost it's as if you've wandered into a foreign country where you can't speak the ...
One boy's adventure on the high sea - and beyond. In Edinburgh, a bankrupt father and his son, twelve year old John Barr, are running for their lives, having been falsely accused of murder. At the ...
Stinker Muggles is not the most popular boy in the class for reasons that are very obvious. But when the Dazzle Bug takes up residence behind his ear, life suddenly begins to smell much sweeter. ...
In seventeenth-century Scotland, saying the wrong thing can lead to banishment—or worse. Accused of being a witch, sixteen-year-old Maggie Blair is sentenced to be hanged. She escapes, but instead ...
An enchanting rendition of the Nativity Story from an award-winning author. Matched with sumptuous collage illustrations, this faithful re-telling makes a perfect Christmas gift for young children.
The quiet of Dani's hiding place in the dark graveyard was disturbed by the sound of someone panting close by. Instantly awake, he saw a wild-looking figure: a tall thin creature who stood ...
The quiet of Dani's hiding place in the dark graveyard was disturbed by the sound of someone panting close by. Instantly awake, he saw a wild-looking figure: a tall thin creature who stood staring at ...
It's tough for a boy who wants to play to get lumbered with looking
after his toddler brother. It's even tougher when his brother vanishes!
Still, Gavin is an intrepid man of action, and he ...
written by Pauline Hazelwood also
When Gavin arrives at his grandmother's house, she is nowhere to be found. Thoughts of the football match he is missing and seeing his mates seem insignificant as ...
In seventeenth-century Scotland, everyone knows the devil is real. Everyone knows that witches exist. Everyone knows that saying the wrong thing can get you hanged...When fourteen-year-old Maggie's ...
These stories, collected on the author's travels in Ethiopia, are about animals and hunters, cunning and trickery, love and goodness. Similar to those of Aesop, the Bible and Grimm, the tales are ...
