Pamela Butchart


Pamela Butchart is a Scottish children's author and high school philosophy teacher. Butchart is best known for her books, The Spy Who Loved School Dinners and My Head Teacher is a Vampire Rat, both of which won book awards.

Education and career

Butchart has an MA in philosophy from the University of Dundee and a PGDE from the University of Edinburgh. After graduating, Butchart became a philosophy teacher at Harris Academy in Dundee.
She began writing children's books after her fiancé gave her a book on how to write for children. Butchart has said that Judith Kerr is one of her influences.
Butchart won the 2015 Blue Peter Book Award for Best story for her book, The Spy Who Loved School Dinners which was illustrated by Thomas Flintham.
In 2016, Butchart's book, My Teacher is a Vampire Rat won the Red House Children's Book Award in the Young Readers Category and for overall winner.
In 2017, it was announced that Butchart would write the sixteenth and seventeenth Secret Seven novels, the first additions to the series since 1963. The original series was written by Enid Blyton. The first book, called Mystery of the Skull, was published in July 2018 and the second, Mystery of the Theatre Ghost, was published in February 2019.

Personal life

Butchart lives in Broughty Ferry, Dundee with her husband, Andy Cunningham, whom she married in July 2014.