{{Short description|Book by Patricia Wrightson}} {{Infobox book| | name = The Crooked Snake | title_orig = | translator = | image = File:The Crooked Snake cover.jpg | caption = First edition cover | author = [[Patricia Wrightson]] | cover_artist = [[Margaret Horder]] | country = Australia | language = [[English language|English]] | series = | genre = Children's fiction | publisher = [[Angus and Robertson]] | release_date = 1955 | media_type = Print | pages = 153pp | isbn = | preceded_by = | followed_by = The Bunyip Hole }}
'''''The Crooked Snake''''' (1955) is the first novel by Australian author [[Patricia Wrightson]]. The book was illustrated by [[Margaret Horder]]. It won the [[Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers]] in 1956.<ref name=austlit>[http://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/C385140 Austlit - ''The Crooked Snake'' by Patricia Wrightson]</ref>
==Plot outline==
A gang of children form a secret society to protect a nearby national park from vandals. They record the bush with a camera and write to the Ministry of Conservation requesting the park be designated a flora and fauna sanctuary.
==Critical reception==
In a survey of Australian children's books dealing with the Australian bush, Susan Sheridan and Emma Maguire noted: "In their preferred method of research, and in their dealings with the bureaucracy, these children mark out a specifically modern, as well as Australian, mode of the Enid Blyton or Arthur Ransome adventure story in a natural setting."<ref>[http://nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/jasal/article/download/3109/4071 "Relationships to the Bush in Nan Chauncy’s Early Novels for Children" by Susan Sheridan and Emma Maguire, JASAL, Vol. 14, No. 3, 2014]</ref>
==See also==
* [[1955 in Australian literature]]
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{Children's Book of the Year Award for Older Readers}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crooked Snake, The}} [[Category:Australian children's novels]] [[Category:Novels by Patricia Wrightson]] [[Category:1955 Australian novels]] [[Category:Novels set in Australia]] [[Category:CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award–winning works]] [[Category:1955 children's books]] [[Category:Angus & Robertson books]] [[Category:Children's books set in Australia]]