GCSE Study Guide: My Name is Leon

Kit de Waal (Author)
Kit de Waal, born to an Irish mother and Caribbean father, was brought up among the Irish community of Birmingham in the 60's and 70's. Her debut novel My Name Is Leon was an international bestseller, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award for 2017. Her second novel, The Trick to Time, was longlisted for the Women's Prize and her young adult novel Becoming Dinah is shortlisted for the Carnegie CLIP Award 2020. She also crowdfunded and edited an anthology of working class memoir, Common People, which was published in 2018. Kit was named the FutureBook Person of the Year in 2019.

Samantha Wharton (Author)
Samantha Wharton has been a teacher for nearly twenty years and currently teaches English at St Angela's Ursuline, an outstanding secondary school in East London. She has a degree in Communications and Media(Brunel University), a PGCE in English and Drama (Institute of Education, University of London) and an MA in Black British Literature (Goldsmiths University). As an educator, Samantha has striven to empower and encourage her students to broaden their imaginations through a love of literature. She is committed to ensuring that her students are given options that are diverse and reflective of the world we live in.

Lynette Carr Armstrong (Author)
Lynette Carr Armstrong has been an English, Drama and Media teacher and adviser for over thirty years. She has taught in a variety of London schools and worked in a number of local authorities focusing on school improvement, leadership, wider curriculum development and assessment.