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Maleny author receives National Environment Award for Children’s Literature
4 June, 2004
Maleny author and University of the Sunshine Coast (USC) Senior Lecturer, Gary Crew, will receive a National Environment Award for Children's Literature from the Wilderness Society in Sydney on World Environment Day Saturday June 5.
Mr Crew, the author of more than 50 published works and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at USC, will be recognised for his 'extinction' series of illustrated children's books.
The three books that make up the series, I Did Nothing, I Said Nothing and I Saw Nothing won the national prize in the Wilderness Society's Picture Book category.
The books follow the stories of the extinction of three different Australian species through the eyes of children and are richly illustrated yet sobering in their message.
The most recent extinction featured is of a frog discovered in Conondale in 1973 and lost forever in 1981.
"I Did Nothing is about the extinction of the Gastric-Brooding Frog. This was a frog found only in creeks and ponds in the rainforests of Conondale. It could switch off its acidic gastric juices and turn its stomach into a womb to produce its young," Mr Crew said.
"This had huge relevance for research into illnesses such as gastric stomach ulcers, but since the frog disappeared only eight years after being discovered, we will never know what it could have done to help medical science," he said.
I Saw Nothing tells the story of the extinction of the Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) through the eyes of a child living in Tasmania during the 1930s.
The story follows the trapping of the last known Thylacine and its demise in the Hobart Zoo in 1936.
"The third book in the series is I Said Nothing and focuses on the extinction of the Paradise Parrot which was found only in the Burnett district west of Maryborough," he said.
"These parrots were starved into extinction when sheep grazing in the area wiped out their food supply of grass seed. They were last seen in 1927."
Book illustrator, Mark Wilson, will also travel to Sydney to accept the award.
"Mark's illustrations really emphasised the tragedy of what we have lost. The beauty of the Paradise Parrot can now only be enjoyed through pictures," Mr Crew said.
The criteria for the award was that entries should encourage an attitude of caring and responsibility towards the environment and or an awareness of environmental problems and possible solutions.
For further information please contact:
University of the Sunshine Coast Media Relations Coordinator on (07) 5430 1160