Gene Kemp

Gene Kemp (December 27, 1926) is a British author best known for her children's books.

She grew up in Staffordshire, and her first job was teaching.

From 1972 she wrote stories for young writers about a pig named Tamworth, named after the town she grew up in.

Her best known book was The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler which was published by Penguin Books in 1977. This book, set in the fictional Cricklepit School, involves the protagonist and zir friend Danny in some crazy adventures, and only in the last chapter do we find out zir gender. There are several Cricklepit books including Snaggletooth's Mystery, an alternative history of the school.

She has also written ghost and fantasy stories as well as realistic fiction like Seriously weird which is told from the perspective of the sister of a young man with Asperger syndrome.

She won the Carnegie Award and the Other Award for Tyke Tiler, as well as being shortlisted for the Smarties Award four times, in 1981, 1985, 1986 and 1990. She has also turned her work into plays, the most successful and well-known of which is Charlie Lewis Plays for Time, another Cricklepit story. She now lives in Exeter.

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