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Born 19 June 1921, at Lismore on the North Coast of New South Wales;
Australia and lived in Bonalbo a township in the Clarence Valley .
Daughter of a country solicitor, she was the third of a family of six.
Attended several State schools including the State Correspondence School
for children isolated in the country (the one she most admired), also
boarded at a private school. Educated by her father in literature,
philosophy and wonder; and by her mother in the social sciences. All her
schools assumed she would take up writing seriously but on leaving school
during the war she became a clerk at a munitions works in Sydney.
She returned to Bonalbo and spent some twenty years as a hospital
administrator before joining the staff of the NSW Department of
Education's School Magazine which she edited from 1970 to 1975. Only after
she had married and divorced and had two children (Jenny and Peter) did
she begin writing. Her first published book, The Crooked Snake,
received the Australian Book of the Year Award in 1956, as did The
Nargun and the Stars in 1974. In 1973, with Lilith Norman she
instituted the Writers' Award in the belief that 'any country should
express more than one view of its children's literature'.
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- Hans Christian Andersen Award (Switzerland), 1986: winner
Note:
For her contribution to children's
literature
- Lady Cutler Award for Distinguished Services to Children's
Literature in New South Wales, 1986: winner
- The Cat of the Year Award, 1986: winner
Note:
For distinguished writing.
- Dromkeen Medal, 1984: winner
- The Order of the British Empire, Officer of the Order of the British
Empire, for Services to Literature, 1978
- Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award, Book of the Year:
Younger Readers, 1998: honour
Book for Rattler's
Place
- Family Therapists' Award for Children's Literature, 1992: commended for The
Sugar-Gum Tree
- Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award, Book of the Year:
Younger Readers, 1992: shortlisted for The
Sugar-Gum Tree
- Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award, Book of the Year:
Older Readers, 1990: shortlisted
for Balyet
- Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award, Book of the Year
Award, 1984: winner for A
Little Fear
- Carnegie Medal (UK), 1983: commended for A
Little Fear
- Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award, 1982: highly commended for Behind
the Wind
- Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award, 1978: winner for The Ice
is Coming
- IBBY Honour Diploma, Writing, 1976 for The
Nargun and the Stars
- Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award, 1974: winner for The
Nargun and the Stars
- Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award, 1973: highly commended for An
Older Kind of Magic
- IBBY Honour Diploma, 1970 for I Own
the Racecourse!
- Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award, 1969: highly commended for I Own
the Racecourse!
- Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award, Book of the Year
Award, 1963: commended for The
Feather Star
- Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award, 1959: commended for The
Bunyip Hole
- Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award, 1956: winner for The
Crooked Snake
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