Robert Westall

Robert Westall (1929–1993) was an English author best known for children’s and young-adult fiction exploring war, adolescence, family conflict and the supernatural. Born in North Shields, he experienced the Second World War on Tyneside, memories that later shaped much of his writing. Westall studied fine art and sculpture before spending most of his working life as a secondary-school art teacher. He began writing stories for his son Christopher and published his first novel, The Machine Gunners, in 1975 at the age of forty-five.

The Machine Gunners, about children who recover a weapon from a crashed German aircraft, won the Carnegie Medal, as did his psychologically darker novel The Scarecrows. His other notable works include Blitzcat, The Kingdom by the Sea, Gulf, The Watch House and Fathom Five. Westall’s novels are distinguished by their unsentimental treatment of young people confronting danger, bereavement and moral uncertainty, combining realistic wartime settings with adventure, horror and elements of the supernatural.