David Cox was born in 1933 in a town called Goondiwindi. He grew up in the country and when he left school, at sixteen, went to work as a jackeroo on sheep and cattle stations in western Queensland.By the time he was twenty-one, he had saved enough money to take him to London, where he enrolled at St Martins School of Art.While still in Beginners' Class, he carried out his first book illustration commission for Puffin Books. Several of David's picture books have been short-listed for the CBCA Book of the Year Awards and two have won citations as Honour Books. Bossyboots won a Children's Choices Magazine Award in the USA and was included, as was Ayu and the Perfect Moon in that country's Children's Choices List. In. 2007, he received the Dame Isabelle Rankin Award for distinguished services to Children's Literature in Queensland.
