Rainstones (HarperCollins 1991)

The Roo that won the Melbourne Cup (HarperCollins 1991)
A book about a roo and the Melbourne Cup and Aunty Mugg, who'd always dared to be just a bit different.

The Boy Who Had Wings (HarperCollins 1992)
I wrote this in the days when I still went caving and wondered what an intelligent cave living species might be like.

The Children of the Valley series 5 books (Aird Books 1996)

The Music From the Sea (1993)
City in the Sand (1993)
House of a Hundred Animals (1993)
The Metal Men (1994)
The Tribe That sang to Trees (1996)

These are set many years in the future. As far as the people of the Valley know, they are the only ones left in the world. The only people who leave the safety of the Valley are the Collectors, who hunt for metal or new plants in the world outside - except for two children, Possum, from the House of the Three Jasmines, and Mopoke of Iron Fist, with their companion the crippled collector, Desert Wind.

The Valley in these books is based on the valley we live in here - but hundreds of years in the future.

Mopoke and Possum aren't based on anyone in particular,..though they do have hints of my son Edward and Victoria Clutterbuck's (the illustrator’s) daughter Celene. But I think both would be insulted if they thought either character was based on them. I don't see myself as Desert Wind, though one reviewer at least assumed I was - though I probably do have small bits of her character and of Big Wattie's too.

I don't base any character on any one person, but they are all comprised of bits of people I have known (that sounds a bit as though I hack at them with a cleaver and stick them together again, but it isn't quite like that). I suppose many of them are bits of myself too.

My favourite character is Prickleberry Three Tooth - the story teller who is too old for the adventures in the series. I would have liked to write more about him and in the original plan he was a central character in three of the books.

No, that's not how I imagine Australia will be in the future though it has threads of possible futures. But it's how I imagine the Araluen Valley and the districts around it would fare if the future in the books came to pass.

The names for people and places just jump on me when I'm not looking - I very rarely work them out consciously. But the names come after the background and the theme so they are probably unconsciously related.

Hairy Charlie and the Frog (CIS 1994)

A picture book - all Hairy Charlie wants to do is get his mail in peace... but the frog likes his letter box too! Out of print, I think...CIS sold it to Reed Books, and when I ask Reed books about it they just say someone will ring back...and they never do

Shortlisted Wilderness Society Children's Book of the Year

Hairy Charlie and the Pumpkin (CIS 1994)
The sequel...another one swallowed up by Reed Books and I can't find out what's happened to it.

Twelve Bottles Popping! (CIS)
A book of things to make for Christmas...it disappeared when Reed Books bought the right to it. If anyone can get Reed Books to discover what they've done with it, I'll be forever grateful.

The Secret Beach (HarperCollins 1995)
A book about a women who lived with mermaids for ten years... and a girl who is tired of being human. I've never seen a mermaid- but I used to spend days wandering along the beach by myself trying to hear them sing above the waves. (When I was younger I lived on an island off the Queensland coast for a while. There was a pet dingo and emus who dashed into the school yard to pinch our lunches.)CBC Notable Book

Alien Games (Harper Collins 1995)
Five sci-fi stories with a difference

Annie's Pouch (HarperCollins 1995)
A book about the strange and special friendship of a girl and a wallaby, a wombat and the other creatures near her farm. CBC Notable Book

Mermaids (HarperCollins 1995)
I wrote the poems, Bernard Rosa did the illustrations. They look just like photos of mermaids (maybe they are ... ). Shortlisted for a couple of things I can't remember....

Mind's Eye (Short stories, HarperCollins 1996 )
Mind's Eye is a collection of five longish short stories... as the blurb says - 'in the mind's eye anything can happen - from a blind singer who sees songs in the wind, a lonely bunyip who only wants one thing for Christmas, a boy who watches... but finds he is watched in turn...’.

The final story is based on my Grandmother's memories of the 1919 influenza epidemic, when schools and churches were closed and the adults all either ill or tending the sick. She and her brother rode around the farms on their bicycles to tend the animals, through a land deserted by people, with only the cows bawling to be milked, the lonely dogs, the hens that may not have been fed for days or weeks. The 1919 epidemic is an almost forgotten part of Australian history - so many people died, but it was overshadowed by World War 1 - and when it was over people only wanted to forget.

Beyond the Boundaries (Sequel to "Walking the Boundaries".) Harper Collins 1996, US publisher Henry Holt, German publisher Dressler; French publisher Hachette Jeunesse

Summerland (HarperCollins 1996)
Iddy has come to a perfect world - if only she can remember who she is and why she's there.
This is a book about ecaping into the word of imagination - and using what you find there to solve your problems.

A Wombat called Bosco (HarperCollins 1996)
A giant miracle working wombat - who only kids can see....

The Warrior (HarperCollins 1996)
A book based on 25 years of living with wombats. A realistic story of a young wombat who defends his territory. CBC Notable Book

The Book of Unicorns (HarperCollins/Angus&Robertson 1997)
Five very different stories about unicorns, interweaving the fantastic into the commomnplace.

Dancing with Ben Hall (HarperCollins 1997)
A book of true stories - ones my grandmother told me, stories about the animals I've known. Even a true ghost story (I promise...).

According to the Publisher's blurb: 'There is a village near here called Major's Creek. It's just up the road from us; a winding, narrow road filled with wallaby tails and lyrebirds.

This is a wonderful collection from one of our most successful authors. These stories give children - and adults - an insight into Australian history and the bush in a very personalised way.
The stories are all drawn from Jackie's own family history and experiences and will enchant you, from the tale of the cunning wombat Moriarty to a meeting with Henry Lawson, and her great grandmother's dance with the bushranger Ben Hall. CBC Notable book

The Boy with Silver Eyes (Lothian 1997)
Short, bloodthirsty and exciting . . .

There's a Wallaby at the Bottom of my Garden (Koala Books 1997)
A true story about Fred the wallaby, who likes apricots and toast with marmalade.

How the Aliens from Alpha Centauri Invaded my Maths Class and Turned Me Into A Writer (HarperCollins 1998)
A book about how to daydream, make compost, eavesdrop, eat chocolate and other good writing techniques.

The Little Book of Big Questions (Allen & Unwin 1998)
This book tackles the BIG questions - for kids, but adults too.. Why isn't life fair? What happens when you die? What killed the dinosaurs (it may not be what you think)? Do aliens exist? Are humans more intelligent than animals?

I wish someone could have written this book thirty five years ago, so I could have read it then.

When I was twelve I wrote to the Professor of Physics at Uni of Queensland asking what was the difference between living and non-living material. He couldn't answer and passed it onto the Professor of Philosophy - both wrote back to me with long lists of possible books on the subject, none of which our school or local library had heard of...

And thirty odd years later I still haven't got a satisfactory answer.

This book gives answers... but it also inspires kids to think of more questions.... and more answers.... because none of the answers in this book are 'final' ones. Maybe one of the kids reading this book will find a totally different answer in twenty, thirty or fifty years time...

There's an Echidna at the Bottom of my Garden (Koala Books 1998)
This is a true story about George the echidna, who likes ants and termites but not the smell of gum boots.

Felix Smith Has Every Right to be a Crocodile (Koala Books 1998)
A picture book for 4 - 6 year olds.

Tajore Arkle (Harper Collins 1999)
Tajore Arkle is the secret world I lived in from about the age of three to 14. It's a world where the only green is in the toxic Rift, where Pastseers 'remember' blue skies, and manna grows in caves on the rock.

Charlie's Gold (Koala book 1999)
A story for 5-10 year olds about peaches, gold and bushrangers.

Missing You, Love Sarah (Harper Collins 2000)
A novel about a missing teenager

Bert and the Band (Koala Books 2000)
A pretty disgusting picture book for early readers about a farting cow.

Dark Wind Blowing (2001)
I wrote Dark Wind Blowing as a book about bullying, but not because I was bullied.
The year before I wrote it my son and I drove past a suburb in Canberra called Bruce. I giggled and said 'I used to know a kid called Bruce. He was IMPOSSIBLE. I started to tell him some stories about how Bruce had worn dorky clothes, and was really bad at a game we all played back then and.. My son looked at me with horror. 'Mum, you were a bully.'
'No I wasn't. It was just that he was so..' I stopped. Because of course he was right. I had been a bully, and so had my friends. We had never played tricks on Bruce. We had included him in our activities. But we HAD laughed at him. Suddenly I realised how much we must have hurt him- and how that hurt may have made him so nervous and lacking confidence that he made even more mistakes.
I am deeply ashamed of what I had done so unthinkingly.
Violent bullies are often repeating the violence that is done to them. But bullying can be contagious. Once someone has been chosen as a scapegoat, the bullying can escalate. I was sometimes laughed at - though only a bit- for being different at school, coming up with the ideas that now are turned into books or correcting my teachers when they made a mistake about ancient Greek philosophy or didn't know much about the agricultural economy of Nigeria. (Some teachers enjoyed this. Others sighed. One failed me for 'not sticking to the text book' but luckily there was an external exam that year (Year 10) and I got the highest possible mark, so it didn't matter.) I learned slowly not to show that I was brighter or more imaginative than others at school.
But maybe I was all the more ready to laugh at Bruce because that meant he was the group's scapegoat, not me.
Why are the main characters kids? Because it is a book for kids, but also that is the time when we learn much of the behaviour we use as adults.
What is the meaning of the book? Be compassionate. If someone is doing something dumb, or trying to show off, try to understand why they are doing it, and sympathise. It is never right to laugh at someone. Laugh with them, but not at them.
And be kind. Kindness is contagious. The more kind you are, the more it will spread. Hatred is contagious too. You might like to look at Pennies for Hitler, too, to see this theme developed on a wider scale.

Refuge (2013)
When a boat carrying a group of asylum seekers is sunk by a freak wave, Faris wakes from the shipwreck in an Australia he's always dreamed of. There are kangaroos grazing under orange trees and the sky is always blue. On a nearby beach, Faris meets a group of young people who have come from far different times and places. They are also seeking refuge, and each has their own story of why they had to leave their own story of why they had to leave their country to make a new life for themselves. It is only when Faris chooses to return to 'real life' and find his father in Australia that he learns the extraordinary truth about the friends he made in the golden beach. From one of Australia's best-loved authors comes a remarkable story about Australia's long history of migration and the people who make up our country.

Read Jackie's original vision statement for Refuge.