Meet the author

Phil Earle.

Writer · United Kingdom

Phil Earle: British children's author of the award-winning When the Sky Falls and the riotously funny Finn's Epic Fails, a reliable favourite for reluctant readers.

Phil Earle is a British children's author from Hull, now living in West Yorkshire, whose route into writing ran through jobs as a care worker, drama therapist, bookseller and publisher. He is perhaps best known for the acclaimed wartime novel When the Sky Falls, which was named Children's Book of the Year at the British Book Awards and shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. In a lighter register he writes the riotously funny Finn's Epic Fails, in which hapless Finn N.O. Hope logs every catastrophe of secondary school in his definitely-not-a-diary, complete with a Fail-o-metre rating each humiliation. Fast, snappy and packed with gross-out gags, the series still finds room for the quiet ache of a family changing shape, making Earle a reliable favourite for reluctant readers and Wimpy Kid fans alike.