Welcome

Mike Nicholson is an Edinburgh-based children’s author, writing picture books and mystery adventure stories for children – popular and prize-winning reads.

He brings his books to life in inspiring interactive sessions. These make reading and writing fun in school classrooms and assemblies, book festivals and community or family events.

“Visiting author Mike Nicholson appeared at Williamston during Book Week Scotland and took our school by storm. Children across the school from nursery to P7 were able to take part in imaginative and creative sessions pitched at exactly the right level to both inspire and enthuse children with reading and writing. After his events a calmness descended as pupils devoured his imaginative stories and even reluctant readers fell silent. Many have experienced a new found courage to create their own stories and the excitement felt during Book Week continued as teachers made use of the excellent follow-up materials Mike provided.”

– Helen Mayhew, teaching staff, Williamston Primary School, Livingston

Mike’s middle grade novels for 8 to 12-year-olds are Hotel Grimm, and the Kelpies Prize winning Catscape – both are mystery adventures packed with intrigue, twists, turns and cliffhangers, and offer fantastic class texts for schools to engage and inspire readers with strong links to the curriculum.

The six-book Museum Mystery Squad series (first chapter books for 5-8 year-olds) include titles nominated in the Teach Primary Book Awards and recommended reads from Summer Reading Challenges. The series includes mystery stories with links to Romans, Vikings, Egyptians and space. Classic ‘whodunnits’ with clues to solve, red herrings to be tricked by, and villains to unmask – stories which engage readers and leave them wanting more.

Mike’s picture books present simple funny ideas like a gift-giving granny or a snoring giant, and provide the youngest readers with ways of learning language through rhyme, memory games and entertaining tales.

Mike is available for one-off events for all ages of children, ongoing residencies or writing commissions, and is on the Scottish Book Trust’s Live Literature database.

Contact Mike here.

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Mike’s latest book

If you have the misfortune to spend a night at Hotel Grimm, it may be the last one you spend anywhere! Or so the residents of Aberfintry believe….

From its vantage point high above the town, the hotel has a decades-long catalogue of dead guests and terrifying stories.

When Rory McKenna becomes an overnight advertising sensation for Zizz Cola, Hotel Grimm’s mysterious owner, Granville Grimm chooses Rory to give his hotel a new image. Refusal is not an option…