Scatterbungle

Edrei Cullen was home-schooled on a cargo ship, traversing the Mediterranean until her mother decided it was time to ‘socialise’ the children. Edrei was 10 then, and already armed with a notebook titled ‘Strange Possibilities’ based on her sightings of mermaids on the crests of waves and talking mice. The family took refuge in a battered port in southern Spain during a force-9 gale. She and her sister were swiftly enrolled in an international school. Wishing for a brother, Edrei did her best to convince anyone who would listen that her sister was a boy.

Illustrator Gregory Rogers was born in 1957 and lives in Brisbane, Australia. He has had several solo exhibitions and is one of Australia’s finest children’s book illustrators. In 1995 he was awarded the Kate Greenaway Medal for Book Illustration for Way Home by Libby Hathorn. Gregory is also a musician and a keen collector of CDs, antiques, books and anything that attracts dust.