It was also on The New York Times bestseller list. ĭiary of a Wombat, illustrated by Bruce Whatley, has been translated into 23 languages and is the only picture book to win the Australian Book Industry Award. Hitler's Daughter also won the UK Wow! Award, a Semi Grant Prix Japan Award and is listed as a blue ribbon book in the US. Her novels Hitler's Daughter and To the Moon and Back have been awarded the CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award in 20, and Pennies for Hitler won the 2013 New South Wales Premier's Young People History Award. Her book The Road to Gundagai was shortlisted for the NSW Premier's History Awards, and short-listed for the 2016 Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature, New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards. In 2014, she was awarded the Queensland Literary Awards Griffith University children's Book Award and the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Notable Award for Refuge, which was also shortlisted for the NSW Premier's History Award in two categories – Children's and Community Relations. Awards and recognition įrench speaking on an Australian Human Rights Commission panel discussion, in her capacity as 2015 Senior Australian of the Year.įrench has won more than 60 awards in Australia and overseas and a number of her books have been shortlisted for numerous Australian and United States awards.

She also presented gardening segments on the long-running Australian TV series Burke's Backyard. She is a regular contributor to the Australian Women's Weekly and the Canberra Times. Hitler's Daughter toured Australia in 2012 and the United States in 2013. Her books Hitler's Daughter and Pete the Sheep were adapted for the stage by Monkey BAA Theatre Company.

French's royalties for that book are donated towards wombat preservation and research. Her most recent works include To Love a Sunburnt Country and The Beach they called Gallipoli, Fire, and The Hairy-Nosed Wombats Find a New Home.

įrench's books include both fictional, factional and non-fictional accounts of Australian history including Nanberry: Black Brother White, Tom Appleby, A Day to Remember, A Waltz for Matilda, The Girl from Snowy River, The Road to Gundagai, The Night They Stormed Eureka and Flood and Fire and Let the Land Speak: A history of Australia - how the land created our nation. French began writing Rain Stones, her first book for children, when she was 30 years old, living in a shed and in need of money to register her car.

A Waltz for Matilda by Jackie French