Terry Deary
Terry Deary (born 3 January
1946,
Sunderland) is a children's author now living in
Burnhope,
County Durham,
England.
A former actor, theatre-director and drama teacher, Deary says he began writing when he was 29. Most famously, he is the author of the
Horrible Histories series of books which is popular among children for their disgusting details, gory information and humorous pictures and among adults for getting children interested in history. Books in the series have been widely translated into other languages and imitated.
A cartoon series has been made of the series of books and was shown on
CiTV for a period in
2002.
He received an
Honorary Doctorate of Education from the
University of Sunderland in
2000.
"I've no interest in schools. They have no relevance in the 21st century. They were a Victorian idea to get kids off the street. Who decided that putting 30 kids with only their age in common in a classroom with one teacher was the best way of educating? At my school there were 52 kids in the class and all I learned was how to pass the
11-plus. Testing is the death of education. Kids should leave school at 11 and go to work. Not down the mines or up chimneys, mind, but working with computers or something relevant. Everything I learned after 11 was a waste of time.
Trigonometry,
Boyle's law: it's never been of any use to me. They should have been teaching me the life skills I was going to need, such as building relationships, parenting and managing money. I didn't have a clue about any of these things at 18. Schools need to change."
[Writing history, Interview with Terry Deary, The Guardian newspaper, Tuesday August 12, 2003. http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,5500,1016371,00.html]*
Children's Non-Fiction / Nonfiction Authors*
Terry Deary's homepage
