Ray Harris has written over five hundred short stories for adults as well as several children's books. Most of his works for children describe the adventures of the plucky and resourceful character Turkey Matthews. The characters in his books are based on friends from his childhood growing up around Barmah, Victoria and Caroona, New South Wales. Turkey Mathews was his bush school friend who Harris says, tramped and fished the Mooki River with him. Another character, Old Go, was his school master whose enthusiasms and reckless excursions into alchemy gave considerable sparkle to his school years.
The Oxford Companion to Australian Children's Literature asserts that these books explore 'the pleasure, drama and humour of bush life'.
