Wilkinson emigrated to Australia at the age of 12 with her family and settled in Port Adelaide, where she was schooled.
After working for many years in as a laboratory assistant, Wilkinson turned to writing at the age of forty. Her first book, Stagefright, was published in 1986.
Although Wilkinson's Black Snake: The Daring of Ned Kelly won the Eve Pownall Award at the 2003 Children's Book Council (CBCA) Book of the Year Awards, it was Dragonkeeper (published 2003) that really cemented Wilkinson's success: Dragonkeeper and its sequels have won KOALA Awards, Queensland Premier's Literary awards, Aurealis Awards, CBCA Awards, and Western Australian Young Readers' Awards, and have been shortlisted for many more, including being shortlisted for the Patricia Wrightson Award (NSW Premier's Literary Awards) three times for three books. Books from the series have been taught at La Trobe University and the University of New England. In 2017, an adaptation of the series was announced, a Chinese-Spanish co-production.
In addition to the works listed, Wilkinson has also written The Games: The Extraordinary History of the Modern Olympics, Fire in the Belly: The Inside Story of the Modern Olympics, and Atmospheric (which won an Environment Award for Children's Literature [Non-fiction] in 2016). Other publications include reference works for children on a wide range of subjects including shipwrecks and medieval knights.
Carole Wilkinson is the mother of the writer Lili Wilkinson.