Rosanne Hawke is the South Australian author of over twenty-five books. She lived in Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates as an aid worker for ten years.

Her books include Kelsey and the Quest of the Porcelain Doll, a CBCA Notable Book, and Taj and the Great Camel Trek, winner of the 2012 Adelaide Festival Awards for Children’s Literature and shortlisted for the 2012 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.

She is the 2015 recipient of the Nance Donkin Award; an Asialink, Carclew, Varuna and May Gibbs Fellow; and a Bard of Cornwall. She teaches creative writing at Tabor Adelaide and writes in an old Cornish farmhouse with underground rooms near Kapunda.

Robert Ingpen's illustrations evoke scenes of station life and convey Jim's excitement at the arrival of the new pedal radio. The flaps with their wonderful pencil sketches of the characters open up to reveal rich colour scenes.

Fascinating factual information at the back of the book explains how the pedal radio worked and how the Flying Doctor and the School of the Air developed as a result. A sister book to the award-winning Tea and Sugar Christmas, with the same author and illustrator.