Speaker: Jackie French AM

Jackie French AM is one of Australia’s best loved authors, with over 60 national and international awards, as well as a historian, ecologist, and dyslexic. She is passionate about the right of every child to read, and the power of story to change lives. She was Australian Literacy Ambassador 2011, Australian Children's Laureate 2014-2015, Senior Australian 2015, and is currently Ambassador, National Centre for Australian Children’s Literature, Patron, Monkey Baa Theatre Company, Patron Book Links, Patron SPELD QLD, Ambassador, Code Read among other her voluntary positions for young people, as well as her own ‘Magic Book’ project that promises to find and provide a book that every child- or adult- finds impossible to stop reading. While Diary of a Wombat may always be the best loved of her over 200 works (please do not call her prolific) her books like Hitler’s Daughter, Nanberry: Black Brother Whiteand Tom Appleby Convict Boy have long been invaluable classroom staples, as are newer works like the Matilda Saga. Her books connect history, geography, literature, ethics and ecology.