Anneliese Emmans Dean

Anneliese Emmans Dean was one of our first authors of children’s books. We published her first book Buzzing! in April 2012, which won the NS Teachers’ Book Award and was shortlisted for the Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize.

Anneliese was full of enthusiasm for the natural world and could capture an audience easily, especially a young audience, with her poetry readings, full of charm and humour as they were. Sadly Anneliese died of cancer in May 2022. Yet her legacy continues. Many of her nature and poetry videos are available on the internet. Both her books are promoted on our website.

Anneliese grew up in York and studied Modern and Medieval Languages at Cambridge University. She worked as a translator for the Oxford English Dictionary and as an editor of academic and educational books. As she remarked, she had written poems (mostly fun; some more serious) for children and adults for as long as she could remember. Since 2007, she had been performing her poems nationwide in live multi-media shows at festivals and schools. Her work had been broadcast nationally and internationally on BBC radio channels, and she appeared regularly on Radio York. She also wrote song lyrics and produced ‘Eco-musicals’ to make us aware of pressing environmental issues. Her work and performances have won various awards.