The Castaways of the Charles Eaton

Gary Crew has been awarded the Children’s Book Council of Australia, Book of the Year Award four times; twice for Older Readers (Strange Objects in 1991 and Angel’s Gate in 1993), and twice for Picture Books (First Light in 1993 and The Water Tower in 1996). He has also been short-listed twice for the Edgar Allan Poe Mystery Fiction Award for Youth in the USA, and has been awarded the American Children’s Book of Distinction. Gary is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing, Children’s and Adult Literature at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland.

Fine artist Mark Wilson has been illustrating and writing children’s books for over twenty years, at the same time exhibiting as a fine artist in many solo and group exhibitions and performing as a musician. Of his numerous popular children’s books, the most recent are Stranded!, Angel of Kokoda, Journey of the Sea Turtle, My Mother’s Eyes: The Story of a Boy Soldier, The Yellow Turban and Aladdin and The Magic Lamp. Mark has won many awards for illustration and fine art, including Whitley Award for Childrens Literature (The Last Tree 2007); Wilderness Society Award for Children’s Literature (The Extinction Trilogy, wirtten by Gary Crew, 2004); Wilderness Soci