Jane Bingham is a versatile writer for children and teenagers. Over the past 12 years, she has written more than 100 books for publishers such as Usborne, Heinemann, Hodder and Penguin. While she believes that any subject can be made exciting for young readers, her main areas of interest are history and art. Her history books aim to inject a sense of fun into learning about the past, and include titles such as Welcome to the Ancient OIympics! and A Time Travel Guide to the Aztec Empire (both published by Heinemann-Raintree). Her art books cover subjects as varied as Impressionism, graffiti and Aboriginal art, and often feature practical projects.
Jane is passionate about children’s literacy. While working at Usborne Publishing, she devised and edited the Usborne Illustrated Dictionary, which won a UK Reading Association award for its substantial contribution to children’s literacy. She also created a children’s thesaurus for Usborne and is currently working on a bilingual dictionary for Oxford University Press. She has contributed to a range of reading schemes and plays an active part in ARCh, a charity working to improve literacy in Oxfordshire schools.
In 2009, Jane published her first book for adults. A Cultural History of the Cotswolds (Signal Books) is the result of many years spent exploring the countryside around her Oxford home. When she is not writing for young readers, she enjoys yoga and hiking, spending time with her husband, sons and stepsons, and tinkering on a novel set in 15th-century Italy.
