Can’t wait to see Liz Anelli’s illustrations for our new book together, A Year on the Reef.
Liz and I went to the Great Barrier Reef to do research and, besides having fun, were fascinated and awed by the creatures and eco-systems. Liz particularly liked the birds, as she’s known to do!
How lucky am I? This is the best job in the world!
So excited to share our news that Seed to Sky: Life in the Daintree has won the Whitley Award for Children’s Conservation Awareness, given by the NSW Royal Zoological Society.
The Award ceremony was held at the Australian Museum – it was fantastic to hear the scientists who had won the other awards talk about their work. There is so much still to be discovered about the natural world!
Liz Anelli is in England, so I took her along as a mini-her to make sure she’d be in all the photos! (That’s my husband next to us, plus a horse and rider who may have been there some time…)
It was so exciting this week when Liz Anelli flew all the way from the UK to celebrate the publication of our new non-fiction picture book: Seed to Sky: Life in the Daintree.
I’m so privileged to work with Liz. This book is so beautiful. Every page has a wealth of colour and line and detail—honestly, you could spend a week going over it page by page, and still not find everything!
Here are Liz and I at a school doing a workshop on writing and drawing non-fiction. Lovely to be welcomed!
If you’d like to use Seed to Sky for your children or class, you can find buying links here and teacher’s notes here.
Edited to add: We’ve also just won the NSW Royal Zoolological Society’s Whitley Award for Children’s Introduction to Ecology!
I’m very excited to announce that Dry to Dry: The Seasons of Kakadu has won the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Eve Pownall Award for Information Books. That’s a mouthful – basically, illustrator Liz Anelli and I have won Book Week for non-fiction!
To celebrate, I’ve made a video of me reading the book, and showing off Liz’s fantastic artwork. You can watch it right here:
Feel free to use this video in your classrooms or libraries!
I’m very happy indeed to show you this book.
Twelve amazing women from Australian history, brought to life by illustrator Sophie Beer’s wonderful drawings.
You will know some of them – Mary Reiby, Edith Cowan – but we hope some of them will be new to you. Like aviator Lores Bonney, or lecturer and actor Rose Quong.
I had so much fun writing this book, I hope you enjoy it too!
You can buy it here.
Desert Lake has been having quite a time of it!
I’ve been very proud of this book, not only because it took seven years to write (!), but because Liz Anelli’s illustrations are so magical that it’s like walking around with an art exhibition in your hand.
So, to update:
Desert Lake has won the Australian Standing Orders Librarians’ Choice (Non-Fiction) Award. This is very dear to my heart, as librarians really know their books! And to be chosen by them is a great accolade.
It was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards (Patricia Wrightson Award), which was won by Leanne Hall for the wonderful Iris and the Tiger.
And now it’s been shortlisted for the Environment Award for Children’s Literature (Non-Fiction) by the Wilderness Society.
It was also a Notable Book in two categories from the Children’s Book Council of Australia.
But the best news of all – it’s going to be a Big Book – and I mean that quite literally! Very few picture books are chosen by publishers to be enlarged for group reading (where the teacher sits with the Big Book at the front and the class read it together). This is my 25th children’s book, and I’ve never had a Big Book before! I’m so excited I can’t tell you!
So keep an eye open for it in August, teachers, librarians and pre-schools. Liz Anelli’s illustrations look even better when they’re Big!
I don’t normally talk about other people’s books on this blog, but I have to let you know about Wendy Orr’s new book – Dragonfly Song. It’s set in Minoan Crete, and it’s a life work for Wendy, who is one of my favourite writers.
Wendy has been kind enough to write about the research she did for the book on my Pamela Hart website (I write for adults as Pamela Hart). Have a look at it here.
I just can’t wait for everyone to read this book!
Here are the paperback versions of the first three Betony books – and the new one, Princess Betony and the Hobgoblin.
Aren’t they beautiful? I was saying to my husband today that I think the Hobgoblin story may be the best so far.
It’s always tremendously exciting to receive the advance copy of a new book. There’s nothing like holding it in your hands and knowing that it’s real – at last! This is particularly true of illustrated books, where there can be a long time between writing the book and receiving the printed copy.
So today I did my happy dance, opened the parcel up right there in the post office and showed them around. People were very nice and encouraging and not one person suggested I might be a little odd!
All four of these are out in July.
Here is the cover of the new Princess Betony book, out in July! Isn’t it gorgeous?
I’m very happy to say that the first three Princess Betony books will be released in paperback in July 2016, and they’ll be joined by a fourth: Princess Betony and The Hobgoblin!
Many thanks to Walker Books Australia for their support of this series.