The Making of Me: A Writer's Childhood

Robert Westall was the author of 50 acclaimed works for children, including twentieth century classics The Machine-Gunners , The Kingdom by the Sea , The Scarecrows and Blitzcat . He was twice awarded the Carnegie Medal and also received the Guardian Award as well as the Smarties Prize. Robert Westall grew up on Tyneside, the setting of many of his books and when war broke out he was 10 - a good age to enjoy it. War was exciting - Tyneside was heavily bombed and young Bob had to live through the terror of the air raids. His upbringing and family life during the 1930s and 1940s is vividly brought to life in his autobiographical writings - the character and expectations of his parents and grandparents, the influences of his surroundings, the brutality of school life and what it meant in his peer group to be both short-sighted and fat - here are all the influences that were later to surface in his writings, some of them, like Futuretrack 5 , savage indictments of social class. The Making of Me is a fascinating account of the early life of one of the most important and influential writers of the twentieth century, providing a unique insight into his writing.