David Schutte Books in Order

David Schutte was born in Crouch End, North London. During his schooldays, he was a regular library reader, especially of Richmal Crompton's Just William books. That early reading stayed with him, both as a fan and later as someone who would spend much of his working life around children's books.

Writing was not a straight path for Schutte. After several attempts to make it as a writer, he became a computer programmer in the late 1960s. He also worked in branch management, customer relations, troubleshooting, technical manual writing, and marketing.

Writing took patience.

His route into specialist bookselling began in the late 1970s. Looking for old Just William books again, he started collecting copies, found himself with duplicates, and tried selling a short list of spares. A hobby gradually became a trade. Over time, he built a business dealing in vintage children's books, rare editions, and original illustration art.

A career change in 1987 gave Schutte more time to write a children's novel. In 1993, Macmillan published Mud Pies and Water-Bombs, later retitled Danger, Keep Out!. The book launched the Naitabal mysteries, his stories about young investigators who take strange local events seriously when the grown-ups around them do not.

The Naitabal books mix secretive neighbors, old houses, woods, missing people, coded messages, and puzzles with a brisk, child-centered point of view. In Danger, Keep Out!, the group investigates Miss Coates after she appears to vanish down a garden well. Wake Up, It's Midnight! turns its attention to the worrying stillness of Mr. Maynard and unexplained night-time visitors, while Behind Locked Doors sends the children toward the long-shut home of Mrs. Hooper.

Schutte also wrote suspense stories outside the main Naitabal group. Skeletons in the Attic follows Peter and his friend Joe as a family mystery begins to reshape what Peter knows about his past. Sam and the U.F.O. takes a different route, pairing a lonely cottage, an uneasy uncle, and a small unexplained craft with a science-fiction adventure.

Books have remained central to Schutte's life. Alongside writing and school talks, he has worked as a specialist bookseller and publisher, with a particular interest in vintage children's literature, book art, and the work of Richmal Crompton. He has also published collections of Crompton's shorter magazine fiction and sketches.

It is a practical kind of literary life, built from reading, collecting, writing, and helping old books find new readers.