Who is Christobel Mattingley? And what has she written? And why should we pay attention to her books? I hope I can answer these questions and convince you that Mattingley deserves our attention. Whatever the reason, in fact all that is necessary to begin to recognise Mattingley’s achievements is to read some of her books. Perhaps it is because some of her books are for beginning readers, and the stories are considered “educational” rather than “literature”. Perhaps it is because some of her finest books have a non-Australian setting, and Australian critics and readers are less interested in these. Perhaps it is because she has published many kinds of books, such as picture-story books, chapter-books with illustrations, full-length Young Adult novels (before “Young Adult” was a publishing category), fantasy novels, and true-life stories, and critics and readers are confused by the variety. Perhaps it is because she has been published by many different publishing companies, without the persistent publicity and support that some authors receive from their one main publisher. Perhaps this is because, across the years, she has represented herself without relying on a dedicated literary agent.
But she is not as widely known, or celebrated as she deserves. Christobel Mattingley is one of the great Australian children’s authors in the last decades of the Twentieth century, and beyond, with her first book, The Picnic Dog, published in 1970.
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