'Tools of thought'

 

“I think that novels are tools of thought. They are moral philosophy with the theory left out, with just the examples of the moral situations left standing.” – Jill Paton Walsh

 

Born in England on this date in 1937, Paton Walsh (who died in 2020) was a novelist and children's book writer, perhaps best known for her Booker Prize-nominated novel Knowledge of Angels, and the Peter Wimsey–Harriet Vane mysteries, a continuation of a series started by master British crime writer Dorothy Sayers.

 

Paton Walsh also earned considerable acclaim for a series featuring college nurse and part-time detective Imogine Quy, set at fictional St. Agatha College in Cambridge.  

 

But, while that is what many adults cite about her work, it probably is her children’s book audience that should be consulted first, since she penned more than two-dozen highly successful books for children and young adults, including the much honored A Chance Child and Grace.

 

An oft-traveled speaker, Paton Walsh still adhered to “the writer’s life.”  “However much travel one might do, however many tours and appearances,” she said, “the job entails solitude: long hours in libraries and long hours at a desk.”