Cirrus@Austlit

Carol Odell is a children's book author and presenter who had some of her very early writing accepted for the BBC Children's Hour programme as a teenager in London. After World War II she married an Australian, George Foote, and later emigrated to Australia and settled in Sydney.

During the late 1950s, Odell began writing for the Sydney division of the ABC Education Department. During this time she recognised that there was a scarcity of locally produced non-fiction for children, so she focused on writing children's books in this field. In 1960 she toured Tasmania for six weeks, sponsored by the Commonwealth Literary Fund and visited over seventy schools talking to the students about books.

During the late 1960s and 1970s Odell was involved with various ABC television programmes including 'Roundabout', 'On the Inside' and the series 'Skippy'. She also co-wrote and produced, with Simon Townsend, a children's newspaper called Zoot for two years.