Andy Griffiths

"Despite my love of pictures featuring giraffes with their necks on fire and elephants with long spidery legs I was completely without drawing or painting skill."

Andy Griffiths is one of Australia's most popular children's authors. From his bestselling, award-winning Treehouse series now published in more than 30 countries, to the JUST! books (both illustrated by long-time friend and collaborator Terry Denton) and The Day My Bum Went Psycho, Andy's books have captivated and kept Australian kids laughing for more than twenty years.

He’s known for his toilet humour and ‘gross out’ jokes, often balancing ‘nicer’ aspects of his stories with more chaotic ones. Andy's books have been New York Times bestsellers, adapted for stage and television and won over 70 Australian children's choice awards.

Meet Andy Griffiths

Andy Griffiths was born in Melbourne, Victoria in 1961. He’s a universally adored Australian author of children’s books with a sharp wit and hilarious storytelling style that keeps kids and adults laughing during story time.

Andy has been a punk rocker and a teacher in his time, and he uses his life experiences to colour and shape his stories and characters. It was during his time as a teacher when he was dealing with children who thought books were boring. With years of reading greats such as Dr. Seuss and Enid Blyton, Griffiths knew that wasn’t the case – and set out to prove the kids wrong.

He also states that he was influenced by reading a collection of German morality tales for kids, in which one little girl is burned alive after playing with matches, and a little boy starves to death after refusing to eat dinner. Griffiths says he loved the interplay of horror and humour, and he tries to emulate that contrast in his own works.

Andy, a passionate advocate for literacy, is an ambassador for The Indigenous Literacy Foundation and The Pyjama Foundation.