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Meg Rosoff

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Meg Rosoff
Rosoff in Stockholm, 2016.
Rosoff in Stockholm, 2016.
Born16 October 1956 (1956-10-16) (age 68)
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
OccupationWriter, novelist
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAmerican
GenreFiction

Meg Rosoff (born 16 October 1956)[1] is an American writer based in London, United Kingdom. She is best known for the novel How I Live Now (Puffin, 2004), which won the Guardian Prize, the Printz Award, the Branford Boase Award and made the Whitbread Awards shortlist. Her second novel, Just in Case (Penguin, 2006), won the annual Carnegie Medal from the British librarians recognising the year's best children's book published in the UK.[2]

Early life and education

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Rosoff was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1956, into a Jewish family.[3] She was the second of four sisters.[4] She attended Harvard University from 1974 to 1977, then moved to London and studied sculpture at Saint Martin's School of Art.[5] She returned to the United States to finish her degree in 1980, and later moved to New York City for 9 years, where she worked in publishing and advertising.

Career

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In 1989, at the age of 32[4] Rosoff returned to London and has lived there ever since. Between 1989 and 2003, she worked for a variety of advertising agencies as a copywriter. She began to write novels after her youngest sister died of breast cancer. Her young-adult novel How I Live Now was published in 2004, in the same week she herself was diagnosed with breast cancer.[4] It won the annual Guardian Children's Fiction Prize,[6][7] and the annual Michael L. Printz Award from the American Library Association, recognising the year's "best book written for teens, based entirely on its literary merit".[8] In 2005 she published a children's book, Meet Wild Boars, which was illustrated by Sophie Blackall. Just in Case, published in 2006, won the British Carnegie Medal[2] and German Jugendliteraturpreis. What I Was, Rosoff's third novel, was published in August 2007, followed by two more collaborations with Blackall: Wild Boars Cook and Jumpy Jack and Googily. Another novel, The Bride's Farewell, was named one of 2009's ten best books for young adults that were published in the American adult market.

There Is No Dog, published by Penguin in 2011 (US edition, Putnam, 2012) is a comic novel supposing that God is a 19-year-old boy. Rosoff told Book Nerd, "The title comes from a joke about a dyslexic atheist walking up and down in front of a church with a sign that reads THERE IS NO DOG."

Picture Me Gone was a finalist for the 2013 National Book Award for Young People's Literature (U.S.).[9]

The film of How I Live Now, directed by Kevin MacDonald, opened in Britain on 4 October 2013 and in America and Canada on 5 November 2013.[10] It starred Saoirse Ronan and George MacKay and featured Tom Holland.[11]

In 2016, Rosoff won the Astrid Lindgren memorial award and the largest cash prize in children's literature for her entire catalog of work.[12]

Bibliography

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Picture books

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  • Meet Wild Boars, illustrated by Sophie Blackall (2005)
  • Jumpy Jack and Googily, illustrated by Sophie Blackall (2008)
  • Wild Boars Cook, illustrated by Sophie Blackall (2010)
  • It's A Moose!", illustrated by David Ercolini (2020)

Middle Grade Books

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  • Good Dog, McTavish, illustrated by Grace Easton (2017)
  • McTavish Goes Wild, illustrated by Grace Easton (2018)
  • McTavish Takes The Biscuit, illustrated by Grace Easton (2019)
  • McTavish on the Move, illustrated by Grace Easton and David Shephard (2020)

Novels

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  • How I Live Now (2004)
  • Just in Case (2006)
  • What I Was (2007)
  • The Bride's Farewell (2009)
  • Moose Baby (originally Vamoose) (2010)
  • There Is No Dog (2011)
  • Picture Me Gone (2013)
  • Jonathan Unleashed (2016)
  • The Great Godden (2020)
  • Friends Like These (2022)

Non-fiction

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  • London Guide: your passport to great travel (Washington: Open Road, 1995), by Rosoff & Caren Acker

Honors

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Lifetime achievement honors and awards

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Individual book awards

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How I Live Now

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Just in Case

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What I Was

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  • 2009 Der Luchs des Jahres
  • Finalist 2008 Carnegie Medal[14]
  • Finalist 2008 Costa Book Award
  • Finalist 2009 New Angle Prize

The Bride's Farewell

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Picture Me Gone

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  • Finalist 2013 U.S. National Book Award[9]
Good Dog McTavish
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  • Winner 2020 Premio Letteratura Ragazzi Prize

The Great Godden

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References

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  1. ^ "Birthdays". The Guardian. London. 16 October 2014. p. 47.
  2. ^ a b c (Carnegie Winner 2007) Archived 29 January 2013 at the Wayback Machine. Living Archive: Celebrating the Carnegie and Greenaway Winners. CILIP. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
  3. ^ Armitstead, Claire (13 February 2016), "Meg Rosoff: 'It took 12 years for the hate to compost down into comedy'" (interview), The Guardian.
  4. ^ a b c "Pieces of Me". The Guardian. London. 23 July 2008. Retrieved 12 May 2010. Retrieved 10 November 2008.
  5. ^ Writers: Meg Rosoff. British Council. Accessed August 2013.
  6. ^ a b Guardian Children's Fiction Prize 2004 (top page). guardian.co.uk. 7 August 2012.
  7. ^ a b "Guardian children's fiction prize relaunched: Entry details and list of past winners". guardian.co.uk 12 March 2001. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
  8. ^ a b "Michael L. Printz Winners and Honor Books" Archived 26 March 2014 at the Wayback Machine. YALSA. American Library Association. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  9. ^ a b "2013 National Book Awards". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 21 October 2013.
  10. ^ Catsoulis, Jeannette (7 November 2013). "Young Love, Interrupted by a Nuclear Bomb". The New York Times.
  11. ^ Macdonald, Kevin (4 October 2013), How I Live Now (Action, Adventure, Drama), Saoirse Ronan, Tom Holland, George MacKay, Film4, BFI Film Fund, Protagonist Pictures, retrieved 14 August 2023
  12. ^ Flood, Alison (5 April 2016), "Meg Rosoff wins £430,000 Astrid Lindgren memorial award", The Guardian.
  13. ^ Young adult author Meg Rosoff wins Astrid Lindgren award, BBC News, 5 April 2016
  14. ^ a b Press Desk Archived 9 January 2016 at the Wayback Machine (directory). CILIP. Retrieved 7 August 2012. Quote: "media releases relating to the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Children's Book Awards in date order." (2002 to 2006 releases concern 2001 to 2005 awards.)
  15. ^ "School Reading List book of the month June 2020". School Reading List. Retrieved 22 December 2021.
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