The watcher in the garden

Joan Margaret Phipson AM (16 November 1912 – 2 April 2003) was an Australian children's writer. She lived on a farm in the Central Tablelands of New South Wales and many of her books evoke the stress and satisfaction of living in the Australian countryside, floods, bushfires, drought and all. Two of her novels, Good Luck to the Rider and The Family Conspiracy, won the Australian Children's Book of the Year Award.