Picture Book Authors
Graeme Base
If I had to pick my favorite illustrator and wasn't allowed to pick more than one, it'd be a hard choice, but I think I'd pick Graeme Base. His illustrations are just so amazingly beautiful and so engaging. And his books appeal to a broad age group. His alphabet book Animalia is probably my favorite, though the comical adventures of various dragon discoverers in The Discovery of Dragons is high up there, and his picture book mystery The Eleventh Hour with its endless codes for readers to untangle so they can figure out the thief on their own is super clever and entertained me for hours as a child. His newer picture books, The Legend of the Golden Snail and The Last King of Angkor Wat are beautiful and have great messages too. So many great Graeme Base books to love! Of course, if you want his most Australian work, you'll have to find a copy of My Grandma Lived in Gooligulch which features an old lady with lots of Australian critter friends. (Sadly, our library's copy fell to literal bits and we haven't gotten a replacement yet.)
Mem Fox
Mem Fox is another beloved Australian picture book author. Some of my favorite Mem Fox stories are Harriet, You'll Drive Me Wild! illustrated by Marla Frazee, The Magic Hat illustrated by Tricia Tusa, and Koala Lou illustrated by Pamela Lofts.
Shaun Tan
Shaun Tan writes/illustrates for a very wide audience, from kids up to adults and sometimes it is hard to tell the audience of his books just from the cover. (For example, his Rules of Summer is best appreciated by upper middle grades on up, not the little kids the cover seems to indicate.) My favorite Shaun Tan book is his wordless graphic novel, The Arrival, about a man who escapes a bad situation in his home country, travels to a strange new land and must figure out how to live and work there so he can bring his family out of the dangerous land where they still live.
Lower Grade & Middle Grade Authors
Aaron Blabey
Aaron Blabey has entered this group more recently, and won the hearts and reading time of numerous kids with his Bad Guys series, a highly illustrated series of books about a group of carnivores who are trying to reform themselves as nice guys, and even heroes. This gets more challenging as an evil, mad scientist hamster tries to wreak havoc in the world and make them look bad.
Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton
Author Andy Griffiths and illustrator Terry Denton are super popular in our libraries right now for their graphic novel-like stories about fictional versions of themselves and a wildly imaginative Treehouse they live in. Each new title in the series adds more rooms to the treehouse and more adventures for Andy and Terry. Griffiths and Denton both have other books they've made, but kids right now know them best for their treehouse books.
Catherine Jinks
Catherine Jinks writes stories for all sorts of different age groups. I was introduced to her through her middle grade Bogle books about an orphan who helps hunt monsters in Victorian England. (And this brings us to a lesser known fact about books published in both the US and Australia or US and UK, sometimes the title is changed when it crosses the ocean. For example, Jinks' Bogle series is called the City of Orphans series in the US, and the title of the first book is not How to Catch a Bogle, it is A Very Unusual Pursuit.)
Garth Nix
Garth Nix has written a ton of books for middle grade and young adult crowds. He is probably best known for his YA fantasy series, but his most recent, Frogkisser!, may be my favorite. And don't judge it by that cover, it is totally not a mushy story. It's a humorous fantasy quest adventure.
Emily Rodda
Speaking of fantasy quest adventures, Rodda has created an entire realm called Deltora where readers get to go on a quest to save the realm through multiple series of books. They were super popular about ten years ago, but have faded from memory a little bit. If you know a middle grader who prefers short books but likes fantasy adventures, you might want to dust these off for them.
Colin Thiele
Known for his classic children's stories about animals, I mentioned Thiele for his little penguin story Pinquo in last week's Brainstorm.
Young Adult Authors
Alison Croggon
I came across Croggon over a decade ago as her epic fantasy Books of Pellinor started coming out featuring some bards who must save their world from a terrible evil. I eagerly awaited the release of each one. After leaving the series at four books for many years, Croggon just recently released a prequel making this a perfect time to introduce (or re-introduce) yourself to her works.
John Flanagan
Many have heard of this man's popular series, Ranger's Apprentice, Ranger's Apprentice: the Early Years, and the related Brotherband Chronicles set in a reimagined medieval Europe following around archers (and knights and ambassadors) who work to keep the peace. Students (and adults) get solidly hooked by his writing so they'll willingly devour an entire shelf's-holdings of books. That's saying something.
Scott Westerfeld
This guy makes his home half of the year in Australia, so I'm including him in this list. He's written two series of books that seem to have constant appeal to teens: his dystopian social commentary, The Uglies series, and the steampunk reimagined WWI series, Leviathan.
Markus Zusak
This Aussie is perhaps best known for his somewhat recent story of WWII told from Death's perspective, The Book Thief.
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