Children's author Kay Crabbe began her writing career with feature articles for newspapers and magazines before moving into educational material for children. Her works include fiction and non-fiction books, information texts and school magazine articles linking to the Australian schools curriculum.

 

Kay's interest in literacy was fostered while working with reluctant readers in classrooms over 26 years and prompts her to write in an easy-to-read style.

    

While researching her chapter book, Patch Parker: Son of a Convict, Kay developed an interest in quirky and lesser-known history events. This took her on a journey to the Torres Strait and back to the tumultuous time of Federation for her award-winning novel, The Pearl-Shell Diver: a story of adventure from the Torres Strait.

 

The environment and animals feature strongly in Kay's work, with her non-fiction book, Introduced Species in Australia, commended in the Whitley Awards by the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales.  

 

The author grew up in Sydney and moved with her husband and children to remote areas of Tasmania and Western Australia before settling in far north Queensland, where two spectacular environments meet; the Daintree Rainforest and Great Barrier Reef.