Betty Gilderdale has an Honours degree in English from London University. Since coming to New Zealand in 1967 she has taught at Colleges of Education and at the Continuing Education Department of the University of Auckland. She had her own review column in the New Zealand Herald for 25 years. Her 1982 book A Seachange: 145 years of New Zealand junior fiction won the PEN Best First Book Award, and she has since been a contributor to The Oxford History of New Zealand Literature (ed. Terry Sturm) and The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, as well as to numerous overseas publications. L ike Lady Barker, Betty Gilderdale has written books for adults and for children. Her best-known children's book is The Little Yellow Digger and its sequels. Her husband, Alan, did the pictures.