Sydney [Sam] Alexander Wakefield (13 May 1927 - 22 August 2009) was an Australian writer who was best known for the Bottersnikes and Gumbles series of children's books.
Sydney Wakefield was born in Australia to English immigrant parents on 13 May 1927. In 1945 he enlisted and was commissioned into the 2nd Punjab Regiment. After the end of World War II he joined his father who had an orchard Gosford, New South Wales. After studying Social Studies at Sydney University (1949–50), he married (1953), and started a farm at Kariong, New South Wales. [1]
He wrote short stories for children about "Bottersnikes and Gumbles", which contain a mixture of absurdity, humour, puns, as well as carrying an environmental message. [1]
Wakefield wrote four books about the Bottersnikes and Gumbles:
In 1996 the four books were reissued in an omnibus volume under the title The Complete Tales of Bottersnikes and Gumbles. [2]
The Bulletin was an Australian weekly magazine based in Sydney and first published in 1880. It featured politics, business, poetry, fiction and humour, alongside cartoons and other illustrations.
David Ngunaitponi, known as David Unaipon, was an Aboriginal Australian preacher, inventor, and author. A Ngarrindjeri man, his contribution to Australian society helped to break many stereotypes of Aboriginal people, and he is featured on the Australian $50 note in commemoration of his work. He was the son of preacher and writer James Unaipon.
David George Joseph Malouf is an Australian poet, novelist, short story writer, playwright and librettist. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2008, Malouf has lectured at both the University of Queensland and the University of Sydney. He also delivered the 1998 Boyer Lectures.
Donald Richmond Horne was an Australian journalist, writer, social critic, and academic who became one of Australia's best known public intellectuals, from the 1960s until his death.
Patricia Wrightson OBE was an Australian writer of several highly regarded and influential children's books. Employing a 'magic realism' style, her books, including the award-winning The Nargun and the Stars (1973), were among the first Australian books for children to draw on Australian Aboriginal mythology. Her 27 books have been published in 16 languages.
Shaun Tan is an Australian artist, writer and film maker. He won an Academy Award for The Lost Thing, a 2011 animated film adaptation of a 2000 picture book he wrote and illustrated. Other books he has written and illustrated include The Red Tree and The Arrival.
Sue Woolfe is an Australian author, teacher, scriptwriter, editor and documentary film-maker.
Bottersnikes and Gumbles are fictitious creatures in a series of children's books by Australian writer S. A. Wakefield and illustrator Desmond Digby. Four books were published between 1967 and 1989. The series is considered a classic of Australian children's literature and has sold more than 500,000 copies worldwide. A television adaptation of the same name has aired on Netflix and terrestrial television in 2015 and 2016.
Allan Baillie is an Australian writer. He was born in Scotland but moved with his family to Australia when he was seven. His first job was working as a Cadet Journalist, and then he began to work as a journalist working on papers such as the Melbourne Sun, The Telegraph and The Australian Women's Weekly having studied journalism at Melbourne University. Turning to literature his books include Adrift, Little Brother and The China Coin. He lives in Sydney, Australia, with his wife and two children.
Betty Roland was an Australian writer of plays, screenplays, novels, children's books and comics.
Robin Morrow AM is an Australian lecturer, critic and editor in children's literature. She is a past president of the Australian section of the International Board on Books for Young People IBBY Australia.
AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource, is the national bio-bibliographical database of Australian Literature. It is an internet-based, non-profit collaboration between researchers and librarians from Australian universities, housed at The University of Queensland (UQ). The AustLit database comprises a comprehensive bio-bibliographical record of Australian storytelling and print cultures with over 1 million individual 'work' records, and over 75 discrete research projects.
Desmond Ward Digby was a New Zealand-born Australian stage designer, painter and illustrator of children's books.
Bottersnikes and Gumbles is an animated television series which first aired on 7TWO in Australia and CBBC in the United Kingdom. The cast includes Jason Callender, Richard Grieve, Jeff Rawle, Kathryn Drysdale and Miriam Margolyes. It was released on Netflix in North America on 19 August 2016 but was re-dubbed with American accents.
Melissa Ashley is an Australian novelist. In the 2017 Queensland Literary Awards, her novel The Birdman's Wife won the University of Queensland Fiction Book Award. It also received the Australian Booksellers Association Nielsen BookData 2017 Booksellers Choice Award.
Maysie Coucher Greig was an Australian writer of romantic novels and thrillers. In the 1930s, she wrote under the names Jennifer Ames, Ann Barclay and Mary Douglas Warren and she was considered the most prolific woman novelist of the time.
Mena Kasmiri Abdullah is an Australian writer and poet who has been widely published in The Bulletin, Quadrant, Coast to Coast and in numerous Australian anthologies. She is best known for her stories about Indian immigrant families and the difficulties of adjusting to a new culture.
Margaret Horder was an Australian artist and children's book illustrator. She is best known for illustrating books by Joan Phipson, Patricia Wrightson and Nan Chauncy.
Margaret Dawn Paice was an Australian children's writer, commercial artist and book illustrator.
Lilith George Norman (1927–2017) was an Australian children's writer, also known for her editorship of the New South Wales School Magazine.