Bestselling author Lynne Reid Banks, who wrote The Indian in the Cupboard and its sequels has died at the age of 94. The Indian in the Cupboard is a fantasy book first published in 1980, and made into a movie by Disney Legend Frank Oz in 1995.

Lynne Reid Banks also wrote the Harry the Poisonous Centipede series, Angela and Diabola, and “The Fairy Rebel. Banks’ last book was the 2022 children’s novel The Red Red Dragon. Best known for children’s literature and YA books, Banks also wrote the adult novel The L-Shaped Room in 1961. Her works introduced many young readers to Speculative Fiction.

The movie adaption of The L-shaped Room (1962) earned Lesli Caron (best known for The Glass Slipper, and Gigi) a Golden Globe and a BAFTA, as well as an Oscar nomination.

Writer/TV producer Lynne Reid Banks was born July 31, 1929 in London, England. She was one of many British children evacuated to Canada during World War II. She returned to the UK after the war. Before becoming a novelist she was a TV journalist for ITN (Independent Television News). In the 1950s she was a producer of the TV show On Camera, which starred James Doohan as Alfie.

Lynne Reid Banks had this to say about writing:

“I don’t think you can be taught to write. You can do it or you can’t, and you?do? do it, or you don’t.? But you can improve.? And the only way I know to do that is to read good books and talk to articulate people who keep quoting Shakespeare.”

Lynne Reid Banks moved to Isreal in 1962. She taught in a kibbutz for eight years and became a naturalized citizen of of that country. In 1965, she married sculptor Chaim Stephenson in 1965, who predeceased her in 2016. They had three sons. She herself passed away on April 4, 2024 in Surrey, England, UK, of cancer.

Banks won the J. M. Barrie Award for Outstanding Contribution to Children’s Arts in 2013. Like any good author, she will live on in the hearts of her readers. Thank you, Lynne, for everything. It’s been marvelous having you in the world.

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