Although she had always loved reading and words, Australian children's novelist Joan Phipson didn't start writing until she was caring for her first child on a sheep and cattle ranch after World War II. "Our property was not very far from neighbours ... but because of the petrol rationing we were fairly isolated," Phipson wrote in Something about the Author Autobiography Series (SAAS). While she liked to write short stories and verse, she never dreamed of writing for children. But after her first child was born, Phipson said: "I sat down one hot summer afternoon, pulled the typewriter towards me and ... [wrote] what I thought I would have liked to read when I was about nine years old." The book was purchased by Angus & Robertson, a Sydney publisher. They requested a novel for older children; Phipson sent it chapter by chapter. "They wanted it in a hurry," she explained...