Ann Philippa Pearce was born in Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire, England on January 23, 1920. She studied English and history at Girton College at Cambridge University. After graduating, she worked for the Board of Trade, then the Ministry of Information, before moving to the BBC to write scripts for the Schools Broadcasting Department. In 1958, she left the BBC to work as an editor for the Clarendon Press before becoming a children's book editor at Andre Deutsch two years later. She became a full-time author in the mid-1960s. She wrote more than 30 books including Minnow on the Say, A Dog So Small, The Children of the House, The Elm Street Lot, The Squirrel Wife, The Way to Sattin Shore, Emily's Own Elephant, Freddy, Old Belle's Summer Holiday, Here Comes Tod, and The Little Gentleman. She received the Carnegie Medal for Tom's Midnight Garden in 1958 and the Whitbread Prize for Bubble and Squeak in 1978. Tom's Midnight Garden was adapted for radio, theater, television, and film. She was appointed to the Order of the British Empire in 1997 for her service to children's literature. She died after suffering a stroke on December 21, 2006 at the age of 86.