Through the Smoke

Phil Cummings was born in the small seaside town of Port Broughton in South Australia. He is the youngest of eight children with four brothers and three sisters. Life as a kid for Phil was a fabulous adventure. He was on a farm for the first eight or nine years of his life. When his family left the farm they moved to the mid north of South Australia to a railway town called Peterborough. His older brothers worked on the steam trains. The windows in his house would rattle constantly as the trains rumbled through the rail yards. When Phil left school he worked in a local garage, in the abattoirs and played sport constantly until he left to attend teachers’ college.

Andrew McLean has taught painting, drawing and art, but is now a full-time painter and illustrator of children’s books. Many of the books he has illustrated have received awards from the Children’s Book Council of Australia. Andrew and his wife, Janet, have also created many popular and award-winning picture books together, including Hector and Maggie, Dog Tales and Josh.