Eva Ibbotson

Eva Ibbotson (1925-2010) was a British novelist of romance and children’s/YA fantasy novels. Eva was born in Vienna, Austria, but her family moved to England when Hitler gained power. She was educated at Bedford College, Cambridge University and the University of Durham. She had originally wanted to be a physiologist, but when she realized the amount of animal testing that she would have to do, she changed her mind. Eva ended up getting married and raising a family and becoming a teacher. She began as a television writer, and 10 years later, a children’s writer. Her books are imaginative and humourous, and most of them feature magical creatures and places (even though she did not like thinking about the supernatural), and created the characters because she wanted to decrease her readers’ fear of such things.