Hello to you! We are Kate and Jol Temple and we write books for kids! Some of them love to rhyme and others do not. We’ve written over 26 books for kids from our best selling Bin Chicken series to our International Jr Fiction dog detective series The Underdogs and of course, Kate’s own middle grade novel the fabulous Dangerous Business of Being Trilby Moffat.

We love to visit schools. We talk about and read picture books to little kids preschool through to junior primary. We also love to talk to bigger kids about our chapter books and what it's like being a writer.

Sometimes kids need more details about us for school projects, so here are some answers to some of the questions we’ve been asked!

More about Kate!

Did you always want to be a writer? YES! Well actually there were other things I wanted to be too like an an inventor of ice-cream! I thought it would be brilliant to come up with new weird flavours all day, like ham and lavender or exploding cactus. It wasn’t to be, so instead I became a children’s author because when you’re a writer you can still invent ice-cream and whatever else you like too!

What made you write books? I loved reading from a very early age. I still do. When I was a kid I didn’t always have a great time at school. Sometimes I had a brilliant time, but not always. I think I was a bit naughty. Reading was always a wonderful place to go, it was full of mystery and adventure and I was always looking for adventure.

Where are you from? I was born in Melbourne, in a shoe factory. One of those facts is a lie. You have to work out which one!

What were you like as a kid? I was awesome! But also a bit naughty. I loved to read and the library was my favourite place at school. I also liked running, climbing trees, pretending I spoke made up languages and eating lollies.

Tell us something people don’t know about you? I always wanted a pet, but my parents didn’t let me so one day I found a stray dog on the street and brought it home. I kept it. After that, I brought lots of animals home, some of them already had homes so I had to give them back.

Where do you live? Today I live in Sydney, with Jol Temple and our two sons. We have a black dog called Wicket. You can’t see her eyes. We say she thinks she’s a racoon because she scratches at the door when she wants to come in. Then she runs away.

Did you go to university? Actually I did. I did a few different things before I decided to become a writer. I’ve done lots of different courses at university. I like learning things, which you can do lots of different ways, not just at school.

Where do you write your books? Mostly at the kitchen table, but now we have a cool writing shed. I was very inspired by Roald Dahl’s writing shed, I’m trying to make one just like that so I can sit out there and think things and eat cold prawns just like he did.

What is your favourite book, that you have written? My favourite book of ours is the new Alice Toolie, Birthday Wars. I really like Alice because she is a REALLY funny girl and I don’t think there are enough super funny girls in children’s literature. She’s just as silly and blindly ambitious as Jimmy so they make a great pair. I also love Room On Our Rock because I think it’s really important that we have more empathy towards each other.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing? I like traveling with my family. I still like having adventures and travel fills up my mind with lots of new ideas. It can also be a bit scary, like the time I went camping and a possum got into my tent to eat sticky buns… not fun.