"I had finally learned that my imagination, was never as good as the real thing," wrote Australian author Alan Baillie, explaining his first success as an author of young-adult fiction in an essay for Something about the Author Autobiography Series (SAAS). "The real thing" has remained important in Baillie's work--from that first attempt to his most recent effort. Baillie excels at what Times Literary Supplement contributor Elizabeth Barry called tales of "high adventure." His books are filled with concrete details that vividly connect the reader with a time in history and a geographic place, usually one the author knows intimately. Baillie's love of adventure- -including trips to Cambodia, China, and India--has given him enough material for more than a dozen books, with many award-winners among them. "Baillie has a splendid prose," wrote Alf Mappin in Twentieth-Century Young Adult Writers, "especially when he describes the things he knows at...