Penelope Jane Farmer (born 1939) is a British writer of books for children and adults. She was born in Westerham, Kent, on 14 June 1939 to Hugh Robert MacDonald and Penelope Boothby Farmer. Penelope (Jane) Farmer Biography | Dictionary of Literary Biography

Her first publication was The China People, a collection of literary fairy tales for young people, in 1960. Penelope (Jane) Farmer Biography | Dictionary of Literary Biography One story written for this collection was judged too long to include. This was re-written as the first chapter of her first novel for children, The Summer Birds. In 1963, this received a Carnegie Medal commendation and was listed as an American Library Association notable book. The Summer Birds was soon followed by its sequels, Emma in Winter and Charlotte Sometimes.Her notable books for children include The Summer Birds (1963), Charlotte Sometimes (1969), A Castle of Bone (1972), Year King (1977), Thicker than Water (1989) and Penelope: A Novel (1993).

Farmer stated that she, while writing Emma in Winter, did not realize that identity was such a predominant theme in the novel until she encountered Margery Fisher's comments on the book; she had a similar realization, this time on her own, while writing Charlotte Sometimes.

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