The Fire Wombat

Jackie French is a full-time writer who lives in rural NSW. She writes columns in the print media, and sometimes presents on radio and on Burke’s Backyard. Her books for children include Rain Stones, shortlisted for the CBC Children’s Book of the Year Award for Younger Readers, 1991; Walking the Boundaries, a Notable Book in the CBC Awards, 1994; and Somewhere Around the Corner, an Honour Book in the CBC Awards, 1995. In 2000, Hitler’s Daughter won the CBC Younger Readers Award and the WOW! Award in the UK in 2001. How to Guzzle Your Garden was also shortlisted for the 2000 CBC Eve Pownall Award for Information. Most recently, Jackie won the 2002 ACT Book of the Year Award for In the Blood; her successful picture book Diary of a Wombat was named an Honour book in the 2003 CBC Awards and also won the 2003 Nielsen Book Data/ABA Book of the Year Award.

Danny Snell grew up in Adelaide, and trained at the Central School of Art and the University of South Australia before graduating with a Bachelor of Design (Illustration) in 1992. His first major picture book Whose Tail Is That?, written by Christine Nicholls, was shortlisted the following year for the Children’s Book Council’s Crichton Award for first time children’s book illustrators. His second book, the best selling Bilby Moon written by Margaret Spurling, was nominated as a Notable Book for 2001 and shortlisted for the 2001 Kids Own Australian Literature Award (KOALA). Since then he has illustrated as well as The Long Way Home by Emily Rodda, Scary Bear by Tania Cox and Seadragon Sea, also written by Margaret Spurling. He lives in Adelaide with his partner Louise and his two daughters, Leilani and Daisy.