Robert Atkinson Westall (October 7, 1929 – April 15, 1993) is the author of many books, mostly fiction for chilren, though also for adults, and non-fiction. Many of his novels while supposedly aimed at a teenage audience deal with many complex, dark and in many ways adult themes. Westall's novel "The Wheatstone Pond" was adapted for BBC radio 4 in 2002. Is, in parts, particularly black and is, in this manner, entirely indistinguishable from an adult novel. His children's fiction includes The Machine Gunners (1975), set during the Second World War, where a group of children living in North Shields, England try to retrieve a machine gun from the turret of a felled German aircraft. It was his first novel for children, winning the Carnegie Medal; it was made into a BBC television serial in 1983. In its sequel, Fathom Five (1979), many of the same characters believe there to be a German spy in their home town of Garmouth. He won the Carnegie Medal again in 1982 for The Scarecrows, the Smarties prize in 1989 for Blitzcat and the Guardian Award in 1991 for The Kingdom by the Sea.