Pearce, Philippa

▪ 2007

      British book editor and children's writer (b. Jan. 23, 1920, Great Shelford, near Cambridge, Eng.—d. Dec. 21, 2006, London, Eng.), was best known for her Carnegie Medal-winning novel Tom's Midnight Garden (1958), a mystical tale of friendship and growing up in which 10-year-old Tom befriends Hatty, a girl from the past whom he meets in a magical garden that appears at night only when the grandfather clock strikes 13. The classic story was filmed in 1999 and was later adapted for the stage. Pearce's other books included the semiautobiographical Minnow on the Say (1955), The Children of the House (1968), the Whitbread Prize-winning The Battle of Bubble and Squeak (1978), and The Little Gentleman (2004). She also wrote numerous short stories and book reviews. Pearce was made OBE in 1997.

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