{"id":493357,"date":"2026-02-20T22:49:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T22:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/493357\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T22:49:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T22:49:13","slug":"andy-griffiths-author-of-the-treehouse-books-named-new-australian-childrens-laureate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/493357\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Griffiths, author of the Treehouse books, named new Australian Children’s Laureate"},"content":{"rendered":"

For nearly three decades, Australian author Andy Griffiths has engaged young readers with fantastical books full of toilet humour and adventure.<\/p>\n

Best known for the Bum trilogy and the Just! and Treehouse series, Griffiths has written 43 books and sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.<\/p>\n

Now the bestselling author has been named the 2026-2027 Australian Children’s Laureate, taking over the role from fellow children’s author Sally Rippin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The laureateship, which has a two-year term, will take Griffiths around the country in his mission to engage young people in reading.<\/p>\n

\"Covers<\/p>\n

Griffiths’ Just series is still popular two decades after it first hit shelves. (ABC News: Dave May)<\/p>\n

Of the enduring popularity of his books, he told the ABC: “It’s having that inner child in me very much alive, and writing from that point of view.”<\/p>\n

“It’s writing from my child, to the child. And that gives it an authenticity.”<\/p>\n

Punk rock beginnings<\/p>\n

The new children’s laureate says he grew up reading under desks and writing and drawing subversive cartoons for his friends.<\/p>\n

But his journey to bestselling children’s book author really began when he was the lead singer of a post-punk band called Gothic Farmyard.<\/p>\n

“I discovered I had a great talent for holding the attention of an audience. Although that was more from jumping around like a maniac and less to do with any musical aptitude,” he says.<\/p>\n

“After a few years of that, I discovered it’s the words, it’s the writing, that I’m really good at and interested in, which led me into teaching.<\/p>\n

“If you’ve had the experience of holding the attention of a drunken load of adults in a pub, kids are easy after that.”<\/p>\n

As a high school English teacher in his late 20s, he was surprised to find many of his students did not grow up with bookcases packed with much-loved children’s classics.<\/p>\n

“Many kids had not had a positive experience with a book,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I wanted to pass my love of reading and the adventure and escapism that I felt as a kid on to the next generation.”<\/p>\n

It’s hard to imagine the works of Andy Griffiths without the accompanying eye-catching, and sometimes crude, illustrations.<\/p>\n

\"Andy<\/p>\n

Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton have been pushing the boundaries with their kids’ books for decades. (ABC News: Dave May)<\/p>\n

“[Kids] don’t have patience for a lot of messing around. And that’s why I’ve been very lucky to work with [illustrators] Terry Denton and now Bill Hope, who can do so much of the work of description just through a really brilliant picture,” Griffiths says.<\/p>\n

“So I can tell a really interesting, complex story with as few words as possible.”<\/p>\n

He says it is important for adults to let children discover and develop their own passion for reading.<\/p>\n

“It may not be what you think is great literature, as I’m sure many parents have struggled buying a copy of The Day My Bum Went Psycho,” he says.<\/p>\n

“But that doesn’t matter. If they love it, they’re going to read it, they’re going to associate pleasure with whatever that is.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s not either devices or books. You can have both. And books offer us that particular pleasure where we have to work a little bit in conjunction with the author to create the story together.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For nearly three decades, Australian author Andy Griffiths has engaged young readers with fantastical books full of toilet…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[18034,9098,9097,83386,248915,248914,248918,248919,64,63,248917,248916,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-493357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-18034","9":"tag-720-perth","10":"tag-abc-radio-perth","11":"tag-andy-griffiths","12":"tag-andy-griffiths-author","13":"tag-andy-griffiths-books","14":"tag-andy-griffiths-laureate","15":"tag-andy-griffiths-treehouse-books","16":"tag-au","17":"tag-australia","18":"tag-australian-childrens-laureate","19":"tag-childrens-laureate","20":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}