Philippa Pearce spent her childhood in Great Shelford, a village near Cambridge, and was the youngest of four children of a flour-miller and corn-merchant. The village, the river, and the countryside in which she lived appear more or less plainly in Minnow on the Say, and Tom's Midnight Garden. Philippa later went on to study English and History at Cambridge University. She worked for the BBC as a scriptwriter and producer, and then in publishing as an editor. She has written many books including the modern classic, Tom's Midnight Garden, for which she won the Carnegie Medal. She has been awarded the OBE for services to Children's Literature. Sadly, Philippa died in 2006, at the age of 86.