First Friend

I was born at Brighton, South Australia, on 26th October 1931, and grew up in a little house on the sandhills by the sea. I loved swimming and playing on the beach. Then we moved to live in Sydney, New South Wales, and lived in an old house near the bush, where I learnt to know and love watching all sorts of creatures. My writing started when I was 10 in the children’s pages of a nature magazine. My sister and I always had pets and my stories are often about people who care about animals and birds.

Craig Smith has an excellent track record as a children’s book illustrator. He first teamed with Gary Crew to provide a remarkable interpretation of Troy Thompson’s Excellent Peotry Book and Troy Thompson’s Radical Prose Folio. His more recent awards include CBC Honour Book: Younger Readers (1999) for Bob the Builder and the Elves, Shortlisted CBC Book of the Year: Younger Readers for Billy the Punk (1996) and Shortlisted CBC for Not Again, Dad by Thurley Fowler (1995). Craig has also recently illustrated the Paul Jennings titles: The Cabbage Patch Fib and The Cabbage Patch War, and Sniffy the Sniffer Dog (Lothian Books, 2003) in Lothian’s Start-Ups series.