Australian writer, Mem Fox was born on March 5th, 1946 in Melbourne. At the age of six months, she and her parents who were missionaries moved to Zimbabwe and she attended the mission school there. At the age of eighteen, she left Zimbabwe and attended a drama school in London. She eventually returned to Australia where she was a college professor. She held the position as Associate Professor, Literacy Studies, in the School of Education at Flinders University, South Australia. Fox is considered Australia's most popular children's author. Her title Possum Magic, a title dedicated to her daughter, is the best-selling picture book in Australia. It was also named a Highly Commended Book by the… Children's Book Council of Australia and Best Children's Book in the 1984 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards. Night Noises was a Notable Children's Book in Language Arts, and a 1990 Horn Book Fanfare selection. It was also named by Redbook magazine as one of the ten best picture books of 1989. Other titles written by Fox include Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, Time for Bed, Koala Lou, Wombat Divine, Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, Hello Baby!, A Giraffe in the Bath (co-written with Olivia Rawson), Count Goats!, and The Little Dragon. Fox has written over twenty picture books for children and several others for adults. Other awards received by Fox include the 1990 Dromkeen Medal for distinguished services to children's literature, a 1991 Advance Australia Award for her outstanding contribution to Australian literature and a medal in the 1993 Australia Day Honours awards for services to the cultural life of Australia. Although writing is her profession now, teaching is her first love. In addition to writing, she is an international literacy consultant who is in great demand to speak at literacy conferences nationally and internationally.
One of the world's most acclaimed children's illustrators and twice winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal, Helen Oxenbury grew up in Suffolk and attended The Ipswich School of Art. nbsp; During vacations, she helped out at the Ipswich Repertory Theatre Workshop and went on to study Theatre Design at the Central School of Art in London. nbsp; Over a three-year period, she worked at the Habimah Theatre in Tel Aviv, returning to England to work in repertory, theatre, film and television. nbsp;Helen Oxenbury's numerous books for children include the Quangle Wangle's Hat by Edward Lear which won the Kate Greenaway Medal (Heinemann 1969); her classic Board Books for Babies (Walker Books 1981); We're… Going on a Bear Hunt , probably her best known picture book, re-told by Michael Rosen (Walker Books 1989); nbsp; Farmer Duck by Martin Waddell won them the Smarties Book Prize (Walker Books 1991) ; nbsp; So Much , by Trish Cooke, also won the Kurt Maschler Award (Walker Books 1994); nbsp; Alice's Adventures in Wonderland nbsp; (Walker Books 1999) and its companion, Alice through the Looking Glass (Walker Books 2005) , both by Lewis Carroll; nbsp; Alice's Adventures in Wonderland won both the Kate Greenaway Medal and the Kurt Maschler Award. nbsp; King Jack and the Dragon by Peter Bentley (Penguin Group 2011) was short-listed for the Kate Greenaway Medal in 2013. nbsp; She recently illustrated When Charley Met Granpa by Amy Hest which was published by Walker Books, in 2013.Helen Oxenbury and her husband, John, live in London where Helen works in a nearby studio.