Geraldine was born in 1951 in Enfield and lives in Berkshire.  She worked as a secretary with a TV company until training as a teacher at Christ Church College of Education.  Her first novel, A Little Lower than the Angels, won the Whitbread Children's Book Award in 1987.  She has since written over 100 books and plays for children and adults, including A Pack of Lies, which won both the Carnegie Medal and Guardian Children's Fiction Award,  Gold Dust, which won her another Whitbread Children's Book Award, Forever X and more recently, The Kite Rider and Stop the Train.  Geraldine is married and has one daughter, called Ailsa.

Favourite books:  Tales of the Early World by Ted Hughes; Mr Pye by Mervyn Peake; Jeremiah in the Dark Worlds by Janet Ahlberg.