Westall won a second Carnegie Medal for The Scarecrows (Chatto & Windus, 1981).^[18] No one has won three, yet he was not a full-time writer. He retired from teaching only in 1985, and tried dealing antiques before focusing exclusively on his writing.^[3][7] For Blitzcat (Bodley Head, 1989) he won the annual Smarties Prize in category 9–11 years. In 1994 the American Library Association named it one of the hundred Best Books for Young Adults of the Last 25 years.^[21] He finally won the once-in-a-lifetime Guardian Children's Fiction Prize for The Kingdom by the Sea (Methuen, 1990).^[22] Both that work and Gulf (1992) were highly commended runners-up for the Carnegie Medal.{{efn|name=HC}} The latter is a story about the home front during the Persian Gulf War.

From 1988 until his death Westall attended a writers' circle in Lymm where he helped to assist and mentor new writers.

Death

Westall died on 15 April 1993 in Warrington Hospital of respiratory failure as a result of pneumonia.^[3] At the time of his death, he lived in lodgings with his landlady, Lindy McKinnel, at 1 Woodland Avenue in the village of Lymm. He had his own cottage a few paces away, where each day he left his home to write. Previously he had lived at 20 Winnington Lane, Northwich and run Magpie Antiques, Church Street, Davenham.

As a journalist, he wrote for Cheshire Life, the Northwich Chronicle and the Warrington Guardian. A memorial service was held on 29 September 1993, at nearby All Saints' Church, Thelwall, Warrington. Tributes were paid by former teaching colleagues and Miriam Hodgson, editorial director (fiction) Reed Children's Books.

A blue plaque was placed on Westall's birthplace, 7 Vicarage Street, North Shields, the following year. There is also a Westall Walk, which takes people round locations used by the children's writer in his stories.

Westall's work caught the imagination of the Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. In October 2006 A Trip to Tynemouth by Miyazaki was published in Japan. It is based on "Blackham's Wimpy", a story first published in Westall's collection Break of Dark. The rival RAF crews in the story fly Vickers Wellington bombers. The nickname comes from J. Wellington Wimpy in the Popeye cartoons.

Works

According to WorldCat, participating libraries hold editions of Westall's books in 17 foreign languages.

Adult fiction

• Antique Dust (1989) Reissued in 2015 Valancourt Books

Anthologies

• Spinetinglers (1988)
• Ghost Stories (1993)
• Cat's Whispers and Tales (1996)
• The Best of Robert Westall Volume One: Demons and Shadows (1998)
• The Best of Robert Westall Volume Two: Shades of Darkness (1998)

Fiction

• The Machine Gunners (1975)
• The Wind Eye (1976)
• The Watch House (1977)
• The Devil on the Road (1978)
• Fathom Five (1979)
• The Scarecrows (1981)
• Break of Dark (1982)
• Futuretrack Five (1983)
• The Haunting of Chas McGill (1983)
• The Cats of Seroster (1984)
• Rachel and the Angel (1986)
• The Creature in the Dark (1988)
• Ghost Abbey (1988)
• Ghosts and Journeys (1988)
• Blitzcat (1989)
• The Call and Other Stories (1989)
• Old Man on a Horse (1989)
• A Walk on the Wild Side (1989)
• Echoes of War (1989)
• Urn Burial (1989)
• If Cats Could Fly (1990)
• The Kingdom by the Sea (1990)
• The Promise (1990)
• Stormsearch (1990)
• The Stones of Muncaster Cathedral (1991)
• Yaxley's Cat (1991)
• Fearful Lovers (1992)
• Gulf (1992)
• Falling Into Glory (1993)
• A Place For Me (1993)
• Size Twelve (1993)
• The Wheatstone Pond (1993)
• A Place to Hide (1994)
• A Time of Fire (1994)
• The Witness (1994)
• Blitz (1995)
• Christmas Spirit (1995)
• The Night Mare (1995)
• Blizzard (1996)
• Harvest (1996)
• Love Match (1997)
• Voices in the Wind (1997)
• David and the Kittens (2003)

Non-fiction

• Children of the Blitz (1985)

Autobiographical

• The Making of Me (2006)

Adaptations

Radio

• Hitch-Hiker,(First story in Break of Dark), BBC Radio 5 (1990) ^[1]
• The Machine Gunners, BBC Radio 4 (2002)
• The Stones of Muncaster Cathedral, BBC Radio 4
• The Wheatstone Pond, BBC Radio 4 (2002)
• Yaxley's Cat, BBC Radio 4

Television

• The Machine Gunners, BBC (1983)^[2]
• The Watch House, BBC (1988)^[3]

Awards and honours

American Library Association 100 Best Books for Young Adults of the Last 25 years

• 1994: Blitzcat^[4]

American Library Association Best Fiction for Young Adults

• 1997: Gulf^[5]

Boston Globe–Horn Book Award runners-up

• 1977 Honor Book: The Machine Gunners^[6]
• 1982 Honor Book: The Scarecrows^[6]

• 1975: The Machine Gunners
• 1981: The Scarecrows^[18]
• 1990 highly commended runner-up: The Kingdom by the Sea{{efn|name=HC}}
• 1992 highly commended runner-up: Gulf{{efn|name=HC}}
• 1978 commended runner-up: Devil on the Road{{efn|name=HC}}

Dracula Society Children of the Night Award

• 1991: The Stones of Muncaster Cathedral^[7]

• 1991: The Kingdom by the Sea^[22][8]

Nestlé Smarties Book Prize, ages category 9–11 years

• 1989: Blitzcat^[9]

Sheffield Children's Book Award

• 1991: The Promise ^[10]

Papers

Robert Westall's papers, deposited between 2003 and 2010, are at Seven Stories, National Centre for Children's Books.^[42]

See also

Notes

Today there are usually eight books on the Carnegie shortlist.

According to CCSU some runners-up through 2002 were Commended (from 1954) or Highly Commended (from 1966). The latter distinction became approximately annual in 1979; there were 29 highly commended books in 24 years including two in 1990 and one in 1992.

•No one has won three Carnegies. Among the seven authors with two medals, six were active during 1966–2002 and all wrote at least one Highly Commended runner-up, led by Anne Fine with three and Westall with two. (Westall was also one of three "Commended" runners-up for Devil on the Road (1978), a distinction used about 135 times from 1954 to 2002.)

References