about jonny
HIS LIFE SO FAR...
Jonny Zucker was born in 1966. He grew up in London and as soon as he could write, he loved writing stories. He wrote his first full length book - The Revenge of Caprir - when he was 10. It wasn't very good but he felt a great sense of achievemnet in finishing it.
Before the age of 13 he wanted to be a professional footballer and played for his school team and a local Sunday league team. His position was a right-sided attacker. Although he was a decent enough player he was never ANYWHERE NEAR good enough to make it as a pro.
After the age of 13 he wanted to be a pop star. His favourite band were the Jam led by Paul Weller and when they split up in 1982 he was absolutely gutted! he got a basic acoustic guitar for his 15th birthday and fell in love with it, practising in his bedroom for hours. He played in a couple of bands in school and loved the cameraderie of being in a band.
He studied politics, education & psychology at Manchester University and following that he did a postgraduate diploma in broadcasting at Lancashire Polytechnic (now the University of Central Lancashire). After finishing, he did a few small jobs in radio broadcasting, decided it wasn't really for him and trained to be a primary school teacher at Roehampton University. This he loved, and on qualification he took a job at a primary school in West London.
He spent 8 years teaching (he taught from Year 2 - Year 6) and had the opportunity to teach some amazing pupils with all sorts of personalities and attitudes. It was when reading stories to his class that he remembered how much he had loved writing when he was younger, so he began writing stories for his class.
The first book he ever wrote was co-written with a friend from teacher-training called David Parker - a really great guy - very funny and an excellent writer. The book was called A Class Act and they set up a small publishing company to bring it out. Miraculously, it was chosen as a 'Book of the Week' for the TES (Times Educational Supplement).
Soon after, Jonny bumped into old Friend, Ivor Baddiel, who remarkably, was teaching and writing as well. Ivor knew an editor at Scholatic and knew that she was looking for books for Scholastic's The Knowledge series. They pitched Mystical Magic to her and she agreed to publish it. That was Jonny's first 'proper' children's book and since then he has written over 70! These range from picture books to novels for teenage readers.
His best known books are the Max Flash series (Stripes Publishing) and the Striker Boy series (Frances Lincoln). Books in both of those series have been longlisted and shortlisted for children's literature prizes and the first Max Flash book, Game On, won the Ellis Guilford (Nottingham) Mega Read Award.
He has also written a series mainly for girls called Venus Spring - Stunt Girl, as well as the popular James King of England, which was illustrated by Dennis the Menace artist - Barrie Appleby.
Jonny is currently working on 2 very exciting series.
For Scholastic he is doing a series called Danny Sharp about a boy who drives racing karts and wants to become a Formula One driver.
For Hodder Children's Books he is writing a series called Monster Swap, illustrated by the legendary Tony Ross (Horrid Henry,, the Little Princess etc). This series is all about monster children and human children going to visit each other's worlds and having madcap adventures.
Jonny is married and lives in London with his wife and three sons.