Doherty, Berlie

(British, 1948– )

Berlie Doherty is one of Britain's finest authors for young teen readers. She lives in the Peak District of England, a landscape which often features in her work. She has won the Carnegie Medal twice, first in 1986 for Granny was a Buffer Girl, a story based in the Sheffield steel industry. It tells the story of a number of girls whose fortunes, both economic and romantic, are caught up in the class divisions of industrial England. Doherty won the Carnegie again in 1991 for Dear Nobody, the fictional diary of Helen, a promising music student, who discovers that she is pregnant in the summer preceding her entry into university. Doherty's work is evocative and poignant and she has a talent for involving the reader in her characters' dilemmas.

Nina Bawden, Anne Fine, Lynne Reid Banks  LM