BBC7

Over two metres (six feet seven inches) tall, author Philip Ardagh is big in the world of children's book in more ways than one. He's written over seventy books and has been translated into over thirty languages, writing everything from histories to horror stories (and that's just the 'h's). Work has also begun on turning his best selling 'Eddie Dickens' adventures into a series of feature films.

Born in England with Irish roots, Ardagh (pronounced 'Arder', and meaning 'the high field' in Gaelic) grew up reading Charles Dickens novels and Sherlock Holmes stories, both of which have greatly influenced his writing.

Philip wrote Secret Undercover Vets on Ice, his own six-part drama on Go4It! which, as the title suggests, was very silly indeed. He played the part of himself (very well) and that of a pigeon on a ledge (even better). He also wrote the Arthur Storey drama for Big Toe.

He has won a number of awards, including Germany's prestigious Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis, which he finds very difficult to pronounce, and he has a very large -- and, some say, ridiculous - beard. He lives somewhere on the south-east coast of England with his wife and son.

His books include:

• The Fall of Fergal
• The Hieroglyphs Handbook
• Awful End
• An Alien Asks: Why Don't Fish Have Fingers?
• History Detectives: The Aztecs
• Chinese Myths and Legends
• Get a Life! (biography series)