Origins & Early Life

Dame Penelope Margaret Lively (née Low; born 17 March 1933) is a British writer of fiction for both children and adults. Lively has won both the Booker Prize (Moon Tiger, 1987) and the Carnegie Medal for British children's books (The Ghost of Thomas Kempe, 1973). Lively first achieved success with children's fiction. Her first book, Astercote, was published by Heinemann in 1970.

Pivotal Works & Achievements

It is a low fantasy novel set in a Cotswolds village and the neighbouring woodland site of a medieval village wiped out by Plague. Lively published more than twenty books for children, achieving particular recognition with The Ghost of Thomas Kempe and A Stitch in Time. For the former she won the 1973 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject. For the latter she won the 1976 Whitbread Children's Book Award. The three novels feature local history, roughly 600, 300, and 100 years past, in ways that approach time slip but do not posit travel to the past.

Enduring Legacy & Impact

Lively's novel Going Back was initially published as a children's book, because up to then she had only written books for children. The story is largely...

Contemporary Figures & Related Historical Timelines

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• Abebe Bikila — Historical peer (Died in 1973) (1973): Ethiopian Olympic marathon champion, known for his barefoot victories in Rome and Tokyo.
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