Multi-award winning author, Michael Morpurgo, is one of Britain's best-loved writers for children and has won many prizes, including the Smarties Prize, The Writers Guild Award and the Blue Peter Book Award for his recent novel, Private Peaceful, which has also had two successful runs as a play devised by Bristol Old Vic. From 2003 to 2005 he was the ... Read moreChildren's Laureate, a role which took him all over the UK to promote literacy and reading, and in 2005 he was named the Booksellers Association Author of the Year. His other Reading Ladder titles include Conker, Mairi's Mermaid and It's a Dog's Life. Series consultant Nikki Gamble is the director of Just Imagine, a specialist resource and training centre for Primary English. She is Associate Consultant at the University of London, Institute of Education. Show Less