When the bunyip heaves himself out of Berkeley's Creek, he has no idea what a bunyip really is! So he sets off to find out for himself.
About the Author
Jenny Wagner lives with her husband, their dog and three lazy cats in a small Queensland farmhouse that looks like a witch's cottage. The garden is full of possums, lizards, goannas, frogs, scrub turkeys and other birds. Sometimes a couple of wallabies come to visit, too.
Jenny likes writing best of all, unless it's going badly, in which case she hates it. She also likes going for walks, listening to classical music, studying languages, doing cryptic crossword puzzles, getting together with friends and putting off the vacuuming.
She likes two-minutes noodles with tomato paste stirred in, brussels sprouts and good coffee.
She doesn't like racism, cruelty to animals or people, or getting up early.
As well as her best-selling novels featuring the nimbin, Jenny Wagner has also written several very successful children's picture books.
The Bunyip of Berkeley's Creek and John Brown, Rose and the Midnight Cat both won the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Ward (Picture Books) and are widely considered to be classics.
About the illustrator
Ron Brooks has illustrated many children's books, including those considered to be classics of Australian picture book publishing: John Brown, Rose and the Midnight Cat (first published by Viking in 1986), and The Bunyip of Berkeley's Creek (Viking 1989). Both these picture books have earned world-wide recognition and critical praise. Old Pig (published by Allen and Unwin) was named Best Book of the Year 1997 by the New Yorker and the Chicago Tribune. Recently Ron illustrated two beautiful companion picture books, Henry's Bed and Henry's Bath, written by his wife Margaret Perversi.
Industry Reviews
The bunyip in Berkeley's creek emerges one night, dark and muddy and wondering who he is. And when a passing platypus proclaims him a bunyip, he wanders on, asking a wallaby, an emu, and a man, in turn, what bunyips look like. All their answers, alas, are unflattering (a judgment verified by the pictures), but that no longer matters when the bunyip comes across another large and muddy creature, this one a female bunyip, emerging from another billabong. This commonplace piece of business was named 1974's Best Picture Book in Australia, where the animals are certainly indigenous - but not the sterile art work, which is all in burnished tones covered over with fine black lines and pretentiously laid out in frames and boxes. Overdecorated, underachieved. (Kirkus Reviews)