Pickle the Perfectly Awful Pig

Diana Lawrenson began writing at the age of seven when she discovered she could earn pocket money by having items published in the children’s pages of her local newspaper. Strangely, when she left school, a writing career never occurred to her. Instead she trained as a nurse and midwife, before leaving Australia to work in the Solomon Islands and later London. For many years she wrote for magazines and newspapers, but it was not until 1992 that her first book was published. She is the author of a number of non-fiction titles, including It’s True! Your Bones are Stronger than Concrete and It’s True! Your Hair Grows 15 Kilometres a Year as well as two picture books Pickle, the Perfectly Awful Pig and Paraphernalia’s Present. She lives in Melbourne with her husband.

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.