Spouse Bryan Sullivan Nationality Australian | Name Jackie French Siblings Wendy Darville Role Author | |
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Notable works Rain Stones, Somewhere Around the Corner, Hitler's Daughter, Diary of a Wombat, To the Moon and Back Parents Val French, Barrie Ffrench Awards ALA Notable Children's Book Books Diary of a Wombat, Hitler's Daughter, Pennies For Hitler, Tom Appleby Convict B, Josephine Wants to Dance | ||
Education University of Queensland | ||
Jackie french the life behind australia s amazing author
Jacqueline "Jackie" French (born 29 November 1953) is an award-winning Australian author who has written over 140 books and has won more than 60 national and international awards. She is considered one of Australia's most popular and awarded children's authors, writing across a number of children's genres including picture books, history, fantasy and history fiction.
Contents
- Jackie french the life behind australia s amazing author
- Senior Australian Of The Year Jackie French
- Career
- Awards and recognition
- Personal
- References
She is also an author of numerous books on ecology, gardening, pest control, wombats, other wildlife and hens as well as fiction for adults. She is also a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines around Australia including the Australian Women's Weekly and the Canberra Times. She also presented gardening segments on the long-running Australian TV series Burke's Backyard.
Senior Australian Of The Year: Jackie French
Career
French began writing Rain Stones, her first book for children, when she was 30 years old, living in a shed and in need of money to register her car. Her editor said it was the messiest and worst-spelt manuscript ever submitted (partly because Jackie was dyslexic, but also because the letter e on her typewriter wasn't working because of droppings left on her keyboard by a wombat), but the book ended up being shortlisted for the Children's Book Council of Australia award for the Younger Readers Book of the Year and the NSW Premier's Award.
French's books include both fictional, factional and non-fictional accounts of Australian history including Nanberry: Black Brother White, Tom Appleby, A Day to Remember, created with Mark Wilson, A Waltz for Matilda, the first in an eight-volume series, The Girl from Snowy River, The Road to Gundagai, The Night They Stormed Eureka and Flood and Fire, both created with Bruce Whatley.
Her non-fiction books include the eight-book Fair Dinkum History series that covers 60,000 years of Australian history and is published by Scholastic and Let the Land Speak: A history of Australia - how the land created our nation.
A number of her books are also part of the Australia Curriculum, including Nanberry: Black Brother White, Flood, A Day to Remember (with Nark Wilson), Baby Wombat's Week (with Bruce Whatley), Pennies for Hitler, The Girl from Snowy River and the work she is possibly best known for, Diary of a Wombat, created with artist Bruce Whatley.
Her most recent works include To Love a Sunburnt Country and The Beach they called Gallipoli (with Bruce Whatley), Fire (with Bruce Whatley) and The Hairy Nosed Wombats Find a New Home (with Sue Degennaro) . French's royalties for that book are donated towards wombat preservation and research.
Her book, Hitler's Daughter, has been made into a stage play by Monkey Baa Theatre Company. It toured Australia in 2012 and in the United States in 2013. The play won the Robert Helpmann Award in 2007, the Drover Award in 2007 and the 2006 Drover Special Panel Award.
Monkey BAA also turned her book Pete the Sheep, created with Bruce Whatley, into a musical, which toured Australia in 2014.
Awards and recognition
French has won more than 60 awards in Australia and overseas and a number of her books have been shortlisted for numerous Australian and United States awards.
In 2014, she was awarded the Queensland Literary Awards Griffith University children's Book Award and the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Notable Award for Refuge, which was also shortlisted for the NSW Premier's History Award in two categories – Children's and Community Relations. Her book The Road to Gundagai, was shortlisted for the NSW Premier's History Awards. Her novels Hitler's Daughter and To the Moon and Back have been awarded the CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award in 2000 and 2005, and Pennies for Hitler won the 2013 New South Wales Premier's Young People History Award. Hitler's Daughter also won the UK Wow! Award, a Semi Grant Prix Japan Award and is listed as a blue ribbon book in the USA.
One of her more popular books, Diary of a Wombat, illustrated by Bruce Whatley, has been translated into 23 languages and is the only picture book to win the Australian Book Industry Award. It was also on The New York Times bestseller list. It has also won numerous awards including the 2002 Booksellers Choice Award, Canberra's Own Outstanding List Award for Best Picture Book (2003), 2003 KOALA Awards, Best Picture Book, The Children Book Council of Australia Books I Love Best Yearly Award (2008), the 2003 ABA/AA Nielsen Book of the Year Award, 2003 American Library Association, Notable Book title, 2003 USA Cuffie Awards, Favourite Picture Book of the Year and Funniest Book, 2003, 2004 USA Benjamin Franklin Award, 2004 USA Lemmee Award, 2004 USA KIND Award and the 2007 Kids Reading Oz Choice Favourite Book Award. French was the 2014-15 Australian Children's Laureate and was a finalist in the 2014 Nib Waverley Library Award for Literature Award.
She was awarded the 2015 Senior Australian of the Year. In 2016 French was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for significant service to literature as an author of children's books,and as an advocate for improved youth literacy. In 2016 she received the Australian Book Industry Awards Pixie O'Harris award.
Personal
French was born in Sydney and grew up in Brisbane. She moved to Araluen, near Braidwood, when she was in her early twenties, where she now lives with her husband Bryan. They have turned their property into a conservation refuge for the area's rare and endangered species. she won 60 awards
She studied the behavior and ecology of wombats for 40 years and is the director of The Wombat Foundation, which raises funds for research into the preservation of wombats. She is also the ACT Children's Week Ambassador, 2011 Federal Literacy Ambassador, patron of Books for Kids, YESS, Speld ACT, Speld Qld, DAGS (Dyslexia Association Galwer), and joint patron of Monkey Baa Theatre for Young People with Susanne Gervais and Morris Gleitzman.
French is dyslexic and wrote I spy a Great Reader to help teachers and parents teach dyslexic children to read using varied and new methods.