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Terry Pratchett was born on 28 April 1948 in Beaconsfield, Bucks. His life changed at age 10, when he was given a copy of The Wind in the Willows and he became a keen reader. When he was 13 he got his first short story published in his school magazine. Terry went on to sell it to Science Fantasy magazine for £14 and spent his winnings on a typewriter. Encouraged by this success, he left school at 17 to work in local journalism.

His first novel, The Carpet People , was published when he was only 20 and he continued to write in his spare time whilst working on local newspapers. In his thirties he left journalism and spent the next 8 years as a press officer for four power stations. In 1987 he gave up his job and began writing full time.

He's probably best known for his Discworld novels and has written 2 a year for the last 11 years! The Discworld - in case you don't know! - travels through space on the back of four elephants which themselves stand on the shell of Great A'Tuin, the sky turtle. It's a world in which the librarian at Unseen University is an orangutan and where 'The Luggage', a loyal but unpredictable wooden chest, eats people and magically cleans clothes! The books have been translated into 27 languages, have sold over 22 million copies worldwide and have all been adapted for the stage. He regularly holds the No.1 slots in the bestseller lists and is the only author to have topped both the adult and children's bestseller lists simultaneously. He was awarded an OBE for services to literature in 1998.

Terry and his wife Lyn live near Salisbury.

Terry's books for children are:

• Truckers
• Diggers
• Wings
• The Carpet People
• Only You Can Save Mankind
• Johnny and the Dead (Writers Guild Award 1993)
• Johnny and the Bomb (Smarties Prize Silver Award 1996)
• The Johnny Maxwell Trilogy
• The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (Carnegie Gold Medal 2001)