Francesca Simon

Francesca Isabelle Simon ( born February 23, 1955 in St. Louis) is an American- British author of children's books and children's book series Horrid Henry ( Horrid Henry).

Life

Francesca Simon grew up in California, the eldest of four children in crowded conditions. Her father worked as a freelance writer for television and moved in 1961 with his family to London, where he wrote the script for the film I Could Go On Singing. Francesca became acquainted with the books of Enid Blyton know. When she was eight years old the family moved to Paris for two years, where she went to a French school. She later wrote for children in this age group.

Simon studied medieval studies at Yale and Anglo-Saxon language at Oxford.

She worked as a journalist and wrote for the British newspaper The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Mail on Sunday, The Daily Telegraph and the American Vogue magazine.

With the birth of her only son Joshua in 1989 she began to write children's books. She has written more than fifty book titles. Her story series about the terrible Henry was a great success and has a total circulation of 18 million copies ( 2013), fourteen parts were filmed for television since 2006. In 2011, a rather unsuccessful movie was entitled Horrid Henry no fault of their own by Nick Moore: The Movie released. In the reception of the figure of the terrible Henry as an aggressive, selfish, dull boy was criticized, but the five- to eight- year-old could not get enough of him to read, so that her parents were worried that Henry might spoil the children of the British nation. Simon compares the situation of the child reader of her books with adults who exceed their limits of experience in the cinema or theater, when they see, for example, how a character like Oedipus behaves. Simon promoted the reading and sees in this situation, the possibility of a secret complicity moral thinking between parent and child when they have to deal with the amorality Henry.

In 2008, Simon won the " Children's Book of the Year " of the British Book Award for Horrid Henry and the Abominable Snowman. Their Horrid Henry books have been translated into more than 20 languages ​​and published in 24 countries. As an illustrator for their books they could win Tony Ross. The terrible Henry was disassembled as an animated series in 52 episodes á eleven minutes and is (as of 2013) in Germany part of the pay- TV children's television program Junior.

In 2013, a second volume of her youth book appeared with the gods of Norse mythology.

Simon is married and lives in London.

Works (selection)

  • The wild Max shows what he can. From the English by Anne Brown. Illustrated by Tony Ross. Egmont Schneider, Munich 2004
  • The wild Max can not be beat! From the English by Anne Brown. Illustrated by Tony Ross. Egmont Schneider, Munich 2003
  • The wild Max outwits all. From the English by Anne Brown. Illustrated by Tony Ross. Egmont Schneider, Munich 2003
  • The wild Max and his best tricks. From the English by Anne Brown. Illustrated by Tony Ross. Egmont Schneider, Munich 2003
  • Horrid Henry. From the English by Anne Brown. Illustrated by Tony Ross. Ravensburger, Ravensburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-473-34715-5.
Vogue (magazine) Children's interest channel WorldCat Integrated Authority File
344493
de