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Joyce Dunbar
Joyce Dunbar (born 6 January 1944)[1] is an English writer. She primarily writes books for children, and has published over seventy books.[2] Dunbar is perhaps best known for Tell Me Something Happy Before I Go To Sleep, This Is The Star, and the Mouse and Mole series.[2] She is the mother of the children's writer-illustrator Polly Dunbar. BiographyDunbar was born in 1944 in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire,[citation needed] and is one of four children.[3] Her father was a steel-worker and her mother was a fishing net maker.[3] She grew up in Lincolnshire.[4] Dunbar attended Goldsmiths College in London, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in English.[citation needed] After that, she did several jobs, working as a nanny, a waitress, a barmaid, and a salesperson.[3] In 1968, she started working as a teacher in a college drama department of Stratford-on-Avon, England.[citation needed] However, due to her gradual loss of hearing,[citation needed] Dunbar had to stop her teaching career and in 1989, she became a full-time writer.[2] Dunbar has two grown up children: Ben, a fashion photographer and Polly, an author illustrator.[2][5] Dunbar currently lives in Norwich.[4] CareerWritingDunbar published her first children's book at age 35.[4] In 1985, Dunbar published Mundo and the Weather-Child – a novel about the imaginary friend of a deaf child, which helped her become a runner up for the Guardian Fiction Award.[citation needed] In 1990, her book A Bun for Barney was made into an interactive video game by BBC Multimedia Corporation.[citation needed] In 1998, she wrote Tell Me Something Happy Before I Go To Sleep, which is recommended as a book to help children feel secure. In 2002 Dunbar did a book tour in the United States to promote this book.[2] Her 2005 picture book Shoe Baby, illustrated by her daughter Polly, was made into a puppet show and is part of the 2006 Brighton Festival.[2] Dunbar most well-known series, Mouse and Mole (illustrated by James Mayhew), has been adapted into a 26-part television animation series by Grasshopper Productions, with voices lent by Alan Bennett and Richard Briers.[2][6] Other projectsBeing a deaf person,[7][8] Dunbar has participated in a number of campaigns on behalf of deaf people. In 1998, Dunbar cycled across Cuba in order to raise funds for the National Deaf Children's Society.[3][6] Her journal Cycle Cuba, a record of this event, was published in 1999.[2] That same year, she had a trip to the Himalayas in support of the founding of a new ashram.[3] Dunbar has also taught English writing for children from Greek island Skyros.[6] Dunbar is on the steering group for the Picture project run by SCOPE, which is about the representation of children with disability in picture books.[9] Selected bibliography
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