UWA Publishing has acquired ANZ rights to Lora Inak's children's series

The Cockatoo Crew is a new junior fiction series set at a fictional English language school featuring a group of fun and adventurous refugee and migrant schoolchildren. With superhero energy, a group of 8 kids from different backgrounds are learning a new language and new cultures in a fun school setting. The series, illustrated by Kruti Desai, is for kids aged 5+ who love Little Lunch (Walker Books) and Aussie Kids (Puffin).

Lora Inak immigrated to Australia from Türkiye in the 1980s and is now based in Melbourne with her family and a rescue dog named Rookie. She is the author of children’s and young adult fiction as well as non-fiction and memoir. Lora’s first YA fiction title Unspoken Rules was published in 2017, and her short-story memoir One of A Kind, featured in the Pan Macmillan collection Arab, Australian, Other: Stories on Race and Identity edited by Randa Abdel-Fattah and Sarah Saleh in 2019. On the acquisition of The Cockatoo Crew, Lora says “I am incredibly pleased and excited to see my stories come to life in print, and want to extend my unending gratitude to both the JDM agency, and of course Kate Pickard and the UWAP team for taking a chance on me and my eight brilliant Cockatoo Crew kids.”

Danielle Binks, who represents Lora at Jacinta di Mase management says “I'm so thrilled to see this series of Lora's coming to life with the incredible UWAP. As soon as she told me about her childhood growing up in Türkiye and coming to Australia, I knew it'd make for an incredible and empathetic junior-fiction setting and storytelling.”

The Cockatoo Crew will be illustrated by Kruti Desai who is an illustrator and graphic designer, now based in the UK. After globe-trotting adventures that had her hopping between countries like a character in own illustrated tale, she developed a unique perspective shaped by her experiences in different cultures.

The four-book deal will see books 1 and 2 published mid-2025 and books 3 and 4 published in 2026. The first two titles in the series are Elif’s Itchy Hand and Sambu Won’t Grow. UWA Publishing is proud to be publishing this new junior fiction series in our 90th year of publishing.

For media enquiries please contact UWA Publishing’s Marketing Department.
EMAIL: marketing-uwap@uwa.edu.au
PHONE: (+ 61 8) 6488 3670
Download the media release here.