Author Nina Bawden dies aged 87

Children's author Nina Bawden, who was best known for writing the book Carrie's War, has died aged 87. Publisher Virago said the writer died at her London home on Wednesday morning surrounded by her family. Published in 1973, Carrie's War was based on Bawden's childhood evacuation to Wales during World War II. The writer of some 50 books, the author was also badly injured in the 2002 Potters Bar train crash, in which her husband died. Bawden was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987 for Circles of Deceit, one of her novels for adult readers, but lost out to Penelope Lively's Moon Tiger. Her other novels included The Peppermint Pig, The Birds on the Trees and Granny the Pag. The Peppermint Pig won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize in 1976, while The Birds on the Trees was shortlisted for the Lost Man Booker Prize for the best books published in 1970. But it was Carrie's War, which was often read in schools, for which Bawden became best known. It was adapted twice for television by the BBC, while a stage production ran in the West End in 2009. The book won the 1993 Phoenix Award from the Children's Literature Association in the US - awarded to the best children's book published 20 years earlier that did not win a major award. One of Bawden's last books, Dear Austen, told the story of the Potters Bar crash, which killed her husband of 48 years, Austen Kark, and six other people. The pair were on their way to an 80th birthday party in Cambridge when their train was derailed after leaving King's Cross. Publisher Lennie Goodings paid tribute to the author, calling her "a gently fierce, clever, elegant, wickedly funny woman". "She wrote slim books but they were powerful and extraordinarily acute observations about what makes us human," Goodings said. "She was a wonderful storyteller and she was writing to the end." From: BBC