The Rainbirds

As a child David Metzenthen was a nature boy; he loved fishing and farm work, exploring the bush, and being outdoors under the stars. He also lived very much inside his own head; feeling that the world was a place of unlimited adventure. He harboured dreams of becoming a cowboy, a fisherman, a farmer, a sailor, or a writer. Instead he left home at eighteen, with a copy of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road for company, and hitch-hiked his way around New Zealand. Returning to Australia, David worked as a builder’s labourer and advertising copy writer before finding success as a writer of books for children and young adults.

Sally Rippin was born in Darwin, but trained in China. She is the award-winning writer and illustrator of many books. She received the CBC Crichton award for Illustration for Fang Fang’s Chinese New Year and What a Mess, Fang Fang was a CBC Notable Book. She also illustrated The Shape by Dianne Bates, which was shortlisted for the CBC Book of the Year in 2000. Most recently, she had published her first young adult novel, Chenxi and the Foreigner.