'I was a bookish child with a voracious hunger for stories. At the age of four, I would hold a tiny torch under my blanket at preschool during nap time so I could keep reading. I devoured all the books and demanded more. In those early days, the books that captured my imagination were about magical, impossible things: fairies, pixies, kindly moon folk. I pored over Australian kids’ books such as Animalia, Possum Magic and Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, losing myself in colourful illustrations of strange creatures, rather than anything rooted in the real.' (Introduction)