Pamela Allen was born in New Zealand in 1934. A childhood love of drawing led her to study fine arts at Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland and, after teacher training, to accept a position as a secondary school art teacher. Marriage to a sculptor, William, the birth of two children, and a move to Sydney followed. When her youngest child started school Pamela approached publishers, hoping to find work illustrating books. When one suggested that she illustrate and write a book, her new career was born.The excellence of Pamela Allen's work has been recognised by the numerous awards she has won. She is the first illustrator to have won the Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Picture Book of the Year Award in two consecutive years for Who Sank the Boat? (1983) and Bertie and the Bear (1984). She has twice won the NSW Premier's Award for Best Children's Book for Mr Archimede's Bath in 1980 and for Who Sank the Boat? in 1983, while in 1984 she was awarded an International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) Honour Diploma for Illustration, again for Who Sank the Boat?.
In 1986 she received the New Zealand Library Association's Russell Clark Award for Illustration for A Lion in the Night and Watch Me was shortlisted for the CBCA Picture Book of the Year Award. In 1989 she was awarded the Helen Paul Encouragement Award for Fancy That!. In 1990 I Wish I Had a Pirate Suit was shortlisted for the CBCA Picture Book of the Year Award, the New Zealand AIM Children's Picture Book of the Year Award and the Russell Clark Award.
