Cirrus@Austlit

Jeanie Adams was born at Hamilton, Victoria. She completed a B.A. in Sociology and Anthropology at Monash University then taught for some time in Victorian schools before becoming a lecturer in Sociology at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. In 1976 she and her family moved to Aurukun, a remote Aboriginal Community in the Far North of Australia. In 1984 she returned to Melbourne and completed a B.Ed (Art & Craft) degree. She drew on her experience at Aurukun when writing her first children's books, Pigs and Honey (1989) and Going for Oysters (1991), the former winning the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award for Younger Readers. Both books have been translated into Wik-Mungkan, a major language of the Aurukun Aboriginal people. The English version employs the voice of Aurukun storytellers and has been endorsed by the Aurukun community as an authentic portrayal of their lifestyle. Adams is also the illustrator of Christobel Mattingley's Tucker's Mob (1992).