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Alison Ballance

Alison Ballance is a zoologist who loves telling stories about nature using words, sounds and pictures. She has written many non-fiction books, on subjects such as beautiful birds, rare wildlife, mountains and kakapo, and has been a finalist in both the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards and the Montana New Zealand Book Awards.

She worked as a wildlife film-maker for many years, making more than 16 award-winning documentaries for the Discovery Channel and the National Geographic Channel on animals as various as tigers, wild horses, weta, spectacled bears and marine iguanas, in countries such as Mongolia, Russia, India and Ecuador. Since 2008 she has produced and presented ‘Our Changing World’, RNZ’s weekly science and environment radio programme. In 2017, Alison became a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to natural history, filmmaking and broadcasting.

alison-ballance

Selected bibliography:

  • Hoki: The Story of a Kakapo with Gideon Climo, illustrated by Jo Ogier (Godwit Press 1997).
  • Habitats of the World, a series of 10 children’s books (Dominie Press 2000).
  • Animal Lifestyles, a series of 10 children’s books (Dominie Press 2002).
  • Island Magic: Wildlife of the South Seas with Rod Morris (David Bateman 2003).
  • Dancing with Cranes: On Location with a New Zealand Wildlife Film Maker (Longacre Press 2005).
  • Beautiful Birds of New Zealand with Rod Morris (Random House 2006).
  • Don Merton: The Man Who Saved the Black Robin (Reed Publishing 2007).
  • Southern Alps: Nature and History of New Zealand’s Mountain World (Random House 2007)
  • Rare Wildlife of New Zealand with Rod Morris (Random House 2008)
  • Kakapo: Rescued from the brink of extinction (Craig Potton Publishing 2010)
  • New Zealand’s great white sharks: how science is revealing their secrets (Potton and Burton 2017)

Awards:

  • New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards 1998 Non-fiction Shortlist for Hoki
  • Montana New Zealand Book Awards Finalist 2008 for Southern Alps
  • Royal Society of New Zealand Science Book Prize 2011 for Kakapo: Rescued from the brink of extinction
  • Certificate of Commendation for science communication, 2017 Whitley Awards (Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales) for New Zealand’s great white sharks: how science is revealing their secrets
  • Storylines Notable Book 2018 for New Zealand’s great white sharks: how science is revealing their secrets.

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Storylines Trust Te Whare Waituhi Tamariki and Friends of Storylines Te Pou o Te Whare Waituhi Tamariki together form New Zealand’s only national organisation working year-round to promote New Zealand children’s and young adult literature through activities that include a major national Story Tour to schools, early childhood centres and communities, and awards for writers, illustrators and those who work in the area of New Zealand children’s literature

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