Best known as an award-winning children's book illustrator, Roger Haldane was educated at Port Fairy State School, Port Lincoln Primary and High Schools and the Australian School of the Arts. His family pioneered the tuna fishing industry at Port Lincoln, South Australia and Haldane was a pioneer prawn boat owner/operator. He has also been an Angora goat farmer.
Colin Thiele's Magpie Island, which Haldane illustrated, was commended in the 1975 Children's Book of the Year Award, and its German translation, also illustrated by him, won the Austrian Best Illustrated Children's Book Award.
