Jackie French – July 30 2017

Jackie has written over 140 books and won more than 60 national and international awards. She writes children’s picture books, history, fantasy and history fiction, as well as fiction for adults and numerous books on ecology, gardening, pest control, and wildlife. A number of her books are now part of the Australia Curriculum, including Nanberry: Black Brother White, Flood, Baby Wombat’s Week (illustrated by Bruce Whatley) and The Girl from Snowy River. Monkey Baa Theatre Company, of which she is patron jointly with Susanne Gervais and Morris Gleitzman, has turned Hitler’s Daughter into a stage play and Pete the Sheep, created with Bruce Whatley, into a musical. Jackie has been the ACT Children’s Week Ambassador, Federal Literacy Ambassador, patron of Books for Kids, YESS, Speld ACT, Speld Qld and DAGS (Dyslexia Association Galwer). She was the 2014-15 national Children’s Laureate, 2015 Senior Australian of the Year and became a Member of the Order of Australia in 2016. Overcoming dyslexia herself, Jackie is a tireless advocate for children with learning difficulties. She wrote I Spy a Great Reader to help teachers and parents teach dyslexic children to read using varied and new methods. Jackie has studied the behavior and ecology of wombats for 40 years and is the director of The Wombat Foundation. She lives with her husband on a property which is mostly a conservation refuge for the many rare and endangered species of the area.

Dingo: The Dog Who Conquered a Continent
HarperCollins, 2012; ISBN 9780730493778
9-13 years
Book 6 of the Animal Stars series, this is the story of Loa, who heads off across the sea in his canoe with only his spears and a ‘rubbish dog’ to eat if he gets hungry, or to throw to threatening sharks or crocodiles. But when a storm blows boy and dog out to sea, both must learn to survive in a strange new world as partners – and even as friends. This is a story about survival in our earliest times.

Birrung: The Secret Friend
HarperCollins, 2015; ISBN 9780732299439
8-12 years
Book 1 of The Secret Histories series, this book is set in Sydney Cove in 1789, when ten year old Barney arrived in Port Jackson on a convict ship with his Ma, who died a year later. Struggling to survive in the harsh new colony, good fortune comes his way when he is taken into the family of the clergyman, Mr Johnson. The Johnsons also care for Birrung and Barney learns some language and indigenous lore from her as their friendship grows.