Katherine Rundell was born in 1987 and grew up in Africa and Europe. In 2008 she was elected a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. Her first book, The Girl Savage, was born of her love of Zimbabwe and her own childhood there; her second, Rooftoppers, was inspired by summers working in Paris and by night-time trespassing on the rooftops of All Souls. She is currently working on her doctorate alongside an adult novel.

a b "Katherine Rundell wins Waterstones Children's Book Prize". BBC News Online. BBC. 3 April 2014 . Retrieved 22 January 2017.

Presenter: John Wilson (broadcaster) Producer: Hilary Dunn (3 January 2018). "Neil Cross, Katherine Rundell, Book prize judging". Front Row. 11:55 minutes in. BBC. BBC Radio 4 . Retrieved 3 January 2018. Rundell's third novel, The Wolf Wilder, tells the story of Feodora, who prepares wolf cubs – kept as status-symbol pets by wealthy Russians – for release into the wild when they become too large and unmanageable for their owners. [12] In 2022, she published Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne, which won the 2022 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction [24] [25] and was praised by Claire Tomalin and Andrew Motion, among others. [26] What distinguishes Rundell's biography and makes it worth reading is, according to Professor of English Literature Joe Moshenska in Literary Review, that she is above all a writer, well-versed in the art of prose: "Rather than telling us why Donne is worth reading and absorbing into one’s way of thinking, her writing shows us." [27]

From an ape getting involved in a murder case to schoolgirl cat burglars and mysteries taking place across the world, there are some brilliant capers out there just waiting to be devoured. How CAWPILE didn't come out as five stars I don't know. This book isn't perfect but it's pretty damn close! As they get bolder and explore further afield, they see more traces of another human inhabitant, too – and then they find the map. Who was here before and where will the map take them? Prix Sorcières - Lauréats 2015: Romans Juniors - Lauréat". www.abf.asso.fr. Association des Bibliothécaires de France. 4 April 2016 . Retrieved 22 April 2017.As reported by The Guardian, "She is giving the Baillie Gifford prize money to charity: to Blue Ventures, an ocean-based conservation organisation, and also to a refugee charity. The reason? 'No man is an island,' she says, citing that most famous of all Donne lines." [11] Personal life [ edit ] a b c d de Lisle, Tim (22 January 2017). "British Novelist Bringing Edwardian Wit Off-Broadway". Newsweek. New York City . Retrieved 23 January 2017. Heroes don’t exist, boy – they’re inventions made up of newsprint and quotable lines and photogenic moustaches.”

McElroy, Steven (26 August 2016). " 'Life According to Saki,' a Play Set in World War I, Wins Edinburgh Award". The New York Times. New York City . Retrieved 23 January 2017. Writing children’s books was initially a choice Rundell made because she felt it could be a training ground for her as an author. “I didn’t feel that I had been an adult for long enough to write something as good as I wanted it to be,” she says. “My great hero growing up was Jane Austen and I wanted to write something both big and compact in the way she does, and I was aware that that was so beyond my capabilities that I thought children’s fiction would be a place where I could learn how to write. And now if anyone said that to me I would be livid, the idea that children’s fiction is a place where you learn and move on, I think that is entirely mistaken. But that was how I started.”Rundell's play Life According to Saki, with David Paisley in the title role, [19] won the 2016 Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award [20] and opened Off-Broadway in February 2017. [14] Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2018 winners". Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards. 1 February 2018. Archived from the original on 12 August 2018 . Retrieved 11 August 2018. Katherine Rundell is a bestselling author whose novels for children include Rooftoppers, The Wolf Wilder, The Explorer and The Good Thieves. She has won the Costa Children’s Book Award, the Blue Peter Book Award and the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, amongst many others. She was a 2021 World Book Day author and has also published two picture books for children and three non-fiction books for adults, including Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne, winner of the 2022 Baillie Gifford Prize, and The Golden Mole and Other Living Treasure, shortlisted for the 2022 Waterstones Book of the Year. Her books have sold millions of copies worldwide. Despite the unfortunate absence of suspense, Rundell makes up for the bland narrative by occasionally employing vivid language to describe the jungle: I think I struggled to understand what the story was about - whether it was one of conservation or one of voyage and return. The concept itself was wonderful and I have no doubt that children will love getting lost in the jungle with Fred, Lila, Max and Con but I just couldn't connected with the characters themselves and wanted to - characters are what Rundell excels at.