User:P64/FSF/Children's/Jones/Ursula Jones

Ursula Jones: children's author & actress

sister of Diana Wynne Jones
 * reader of some DWJ books on tape
 * co-writer of children's novel "completed by Ursula Jones"


 * Illustrators


 * Rebecca Elgar (debut 1991) basics ✅
 * Mike Perkins (graphic 2001) basics ✅
 * i172291, three interiors


 * Russell Ayto (Witch's Children 2001–2008?) basics ✅


 * Sarah Gibb (Princess 2010–2014) basics + ISFDB ✅

= Ursula Jones =

Ursula Jones is a British actress and a children's writer best known for The Witch's Children series of picture books (2001–2008). During the spring of 2013 she completed a children's fantasy novel begun by her sister Diana Wynne Jones (1934–2011): The Islands of Chaldea, published by HarperCollins a year later.

Jones studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, England, and then worked in a weekly rep theatre company. Some time later she joined the Unicorn Theatre for Children (established 1947) where she wrote many of the plays. One of her street shows, "Monkey Puzzle, was commissioned as the British contribution to a European Festival of Theatre for Young People." As an actress she has worked with "my favourite genius, Alan Ayckbourn", and for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre.

Jones was scriptwriter for the BBC TV series Greenclaws (1988/89), and some of her picture book stories "grew out of" that.

The Catchpole Agency is her literary agent.

1998 film Ever After, as Isabella, 1:40 clip at TV Guide http://www.tvguide.com/celebrities/ursula-jones/275979

Books

 * Key
 * (Publisher, Year) --UK edition
 * link without publ --only US data found


 * Dear Clare: My Ex Best Friend, Rebecca Elgar (Knight Books, 1991) 172pp http://worldcat.org/oclc/24751563 "the first of my books for 9-13 year-olds", she says; (set at her shop?) in the Cotswolds


 * The Kidnappers, Mike Perkins (A & C Black, 2001) – graphic, 70pp http://worldcat.org/oclc/45439129

"My picture books grew out of two T.V. series for younger viewers, Greenclaws, which the BBC asked me to script." http://ursulajones.co.uk/about.html
 * The Witch's Children, Russell Ayto (Orchard Books, 2001) unpaged http://worldcat.org/oclc/59521609 – illustrator Ayto made the Greenaway Medal shortlist – ages 6–8 Kirkus says (positive)
 * The Witch's Children and the Queen, Ayto (Orchard, 2003) unpaged http://worldcat.org/oclc/59468345 – Nestlé Smarties Book Prize, ages 0–5 years
 * The Witch's Children Go to School, Ayto (Orchard, 2008) unpaged 	http://worldcat.org/oclc/271841137 – Roald Dahl Funny Prize, ages 0–6 years


 * The Princess Who Had No Kingdom, Sarah Gibb (Orchard, 2010) unpaged (US ed. fc 2014-09)
 * Beauty and the Beast, Gibb (Orchard, 2011) unpaged (US ed. fc 2014-03) – retelling of the traditional fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast" http://worldcat.org/oclc/818014727 – ages 5–8, "rich in color and design but less than satisfying in the telling" Kirkus says (and pans text)
 * The Princess Who Had No Fortune, Gibb (Orchard, 2014)


 * The Lost King (Cheltenham: Inside Pocket, 2012) 349pp http://worldcat.org/oclc/778327623 – first of a trilogy – ages 11–14 Kirkus says (in a STARRED review, 2012-11-15)
 * ISFDB http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1462988


 * The Youngstars (Inside Pocket, 2012) 367pp http://worldcat.org/oclc/769471688 ages 10+ she says – historical novel set in 1936, featuring a teenage troupe on tour in northern England, she says
 * US edition, Star Turn (Inside Pocket, 2012) 367pp http://worldcat.org/oclc/779261394 ages 12–14 Kirkus says (and pans)


 * The Islands of the Chaldea, Diana Wynne Jones and Ursula Jones (HarperCollins Children's Books, February 2014) 352pp
 * ISFDB http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1680205