Eva Ibbotson has already settled on her epitaph: “She took trouble”. She regards herself as “an entertainer, a craftsperson, a master baker” - a writer who cares for the skill of writing, who rewrites “as often as if I was Tolstoy”.

She likes to think of her books, she says, as a “nice present to give the reader” and adds: “The best sort of present you can give a child is something they can walk into and enjoy, something that makes them laugh - and cry - and introduces them to exciting places.”

Ibbotson makes an art of her nice presents. She is a champion of happy endings, of books full of good old-fashioned adventure and clear structures with beginnings, middles and positive resolutions. Such clarity and optimism stands very much outside today’s fashion for conceptual complexity, the layering of stories, offering readers choice but no closure. Her taste for “romance” in books, by which she means the “enchantment” of everyday life, could not be more different from the trend for dissecting the trials of life in today’s society.

At the age of 76, she has finally won acclaim for her persistent clarity and wit, and her ability to create wonderfully outlandish and memorable characters. After almost 40 years of writing short stories for women’s magazines ( The Lady, Woman’s Journal and Good Housekeeping ), romantic novels for adults and funny books about witches and wizards for children, she has finally received a Smarties gold award and been shortlisted for the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year for Journey to the River Sea (Macmillan Children’s Books pound;9.99).

This latest novel, which critics say is her breakthrough book for children (reviewed in Primary magazine, July 2001) is a beautifully realised, uplifting adventure for Year 4 readers and above, about an orphan girl, Maia.

In 1910, accompanied by her strict but astute governess, Miss Minton, Maia makes an extraordinary journey from England to the Amazon to live with distant relatives. They turn out to be cruel, but Maia’s loyalty, intelligence and generosity see her through. This is an intensely visual account, full of the colours of South America and some of its incongruous landmarks, such as the green and gold opera house at Manaus. “A friend who had visited Brazil told me about this fantastic opera house,” the author says. “I was struck by the fact that it should exist with the jungle just down the road. That kind of juxtaposition interests me.”

The winner of the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year Award, which is also eligible for
the main Whitbread prize, will be announced on January 22. Also shortlisted are Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer (Viking), The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman (Scholastic Press) and The Lady and the Squire by Terry Jones (Pavilion)

• A longer version of this feature appears in this week’s Friday magazine