Hi, I’m Stephen Davies. I write adventure stories that bring history vividly to life for young readers. My books include picture books, chapter books, comics and YA novels, all written to engage imaginations and support learning.
My particular passion is Ancient Egypt. Teachers often tell me that The Ancient Egypt Sleepover is a favourite in their KS2 classrooms, a lively whole-class read that gets children buzzing with excitement about their Ancient Egypt topic.
OUT NOW for KS2
Young Discoverers: True Tales of Kids Who Made Incredible Discoveries
Children are natural discoverers. They notice things that adults often miss: a strange shape in the ground, an unexpected glimmer, a smell that doesn’t quite belong. My new book Young Discoverers celebrates this innate curiosity through twelve true stories of children and teenagers who stumbled upon something extraordinary.
The book spans continents and centuries. It includes a ten-year-old American who sparked a gold rush, a nine-year-old South African who found a trove of hominid fossils and a group of French teenagers who scrambled head-first into a narrow hole and found themselves surrounded by bucking, stampeding animals – the Lascaux cave paintings.
My research was by turns stultifying and electrifying. Dreary hours trawling through newspaper archives in multiple languages were rewarded by occasional flashes of gold. There! Another young discoverer! And this one is a corker!
Young Discoverers is illustrated by French artist Violaine Leroy, who is known for her soft colour palettes and loose, lively linework. Her rendering of the Northern Lights on page 68 is so gorgeous and dramatic, it made me gasp out loud when I first saw it.
This book has been many years in the making and I could not be prouder of the end result. Heartfelt thanks to Hannah Dove, Katie Taylor, Sasha Moxon, Melissa Gandhi and the rest of the team at Wide Eyed Editions.
I’m a huge fan of heist films, and for a very long time I have been wanting to write a Young Adult heist novel. Here it is at last:
OUT NOW for KS3
How to Steal the Rosetta Stone (cover by Nick Taylor)
Join Hassan and his international school crew in this fast-paced teen heist caper.
I love visiting primary and secondary schools to encourage young people in their own writing. Please see the School Visits page for details of the various sessions I offer, including my ‘Night at the Museum’ writing workshops.
Recent Blog Posts
The Best Ancient Egypt Books for Key Stage 2 History
Myths, Mummies and Magic: Where do the stories come from?
8 children’s books about the Titanic
My favourite books about writing
Bird poems: The Nightjar’s Complaint and The Traveller