Malorie Blackman

I started reading seriously at seven or eight, books about myths and legends, the Narnia series. By the time I was 11, I had read all the children's books in my local library, so I moved on to 'Jane Eyre.' What I loved about Jane Eyre was that she didn't rely on her looks but her character. She had a spirit nobody could break.

The really important victory of the civil rights movement was that it made racism unpopular, whereas a generation ago at the turn of the last century, you had to embrace racism to get elected to anything.