Ruth Thomas (children's writer)

Ruth Thomas (4 January 1927 – 25 August 2011) was an English author of children's fiction. For her first novel, The Runaways, she won the 1988 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, an annual book award judged by a panel of British children's writers.

Thomas was born in Wellington, Somerset, England, to two primary school teachers.

Her books draw on her own experiences as a primary school teacher, at first in East London; during the 1980s in Kensal Green, north west London.

Publications

 * The Runaways (1987)
 * The Class That Went Wild (1989)
 * The Secret (1991)
 * The New Boy (1992)
 * Guilty! (1993)
 * Hideaway (1994)
 * The Paper Bag Baby (2002)