Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the following questions.‘A good book for children should simply be a good book in its own right.' These are the words of Mollie Hunter, a well known author of books for youngsters. Born and bred near Edinburgh, Mollie has devoted her talents to writing primarily for young people. She firmly believes that there is always and should always be a wider audience for any good book ...

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the following questions.

‘A good book for children should simply be a good book in its own right.' These are the words of Mollie Hunter, a well known author of books for youngsters. Born and bred near Edinburgh, Mollie has devoted her talents to writing primarily for young people. She firmly believes that there is always and should always be a wider audience for any good book whatever its main market. In Mollie's opinion it is essential to make full use of language and she enjoys telling a story, which is what every writer should be doing: 'If you aren't telling a story, you're a very dead writer indeed,' she says.

With the chief function of a writer being to entertain, Molly is indeed an entertainer. 'I have this great love of not only the meaning of language but of the music of language,' she says. This love goes back to early childhood. 'I've told stories all my life. I had a school teacher who used to ask us what we would like to be when we grew up and, because my family always had dogs, and I was very good at handling them, I said I wanted to work with dogs, and the teacher always said "Nonsense, Mollie dear, you'll be a writer." So eventually I thought that this woman must have something, since she was a good teacher - and I decided when I was nine that I would be a writer.’

This childhood intention is described in her novel, A Sound of Chariots, which although written in the third person is clearly autobiographical and gives a picture both of Mollie's ambition and her struggle towards its achievement.

Thoughts of her childhood inevitably brought thoughts of the time when her home was still a village with buttercup meadows and strawberry fields - sadly now covered with modern houses. 'I was once taken back to see it and I felt that somebody had lain dirty hands all over my childhood. I'll never go back,' she said. 'Never.' 'When I set one of my books in Scotland,' she said, 'I can recapture my romantic feelings as a child playing in those fields, or watching the village blacksmith at work. And that's important, because children now know so much so early that romance can't exist for them, as it did for us.'

To this day, Mollie has a lively affection for children, which is reflected in the love she has for her writing. 'When we have visitors with children the adults always say, "If you go to visit Mollie, she'll spend more time with the children." They don't realise that children are much more interesting company. I've heard all the adults have to say before. The children have something new.'

How does Mollie feel about what has happened to her birthplace?