Victor Watson spent much of his professional life teaching children’s literature at Homerton College, Cambridge University. He has reviewed many children’s books, and edited and co-edited several academic works on aspects of children’s literature from the eighteenth century to the present day.

In 2000 he wrote Reading Series Fiction, an analytical account of series writers from Arthur Ransome and Enid Blyton to Susan Cooper and Antonia Forest. He is the editor of The Cambridge Guide to Children’s Books in English, and has been a Trustee and Chairman of Seven Stories, the Centre for Children’s Books in Newcastle.

When he retired from full time teaching, he had the opportunity to write children’s books himself, an ambition which had been on hold during his many years of teaching. He has found that his early memories of a wartime childhood in the East Anglian fens are a rich source of narrative material.

His first novel PARADISE BARN is published by Catnip Books.