about the publisher
Jeannie Wolfley Poznanski was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1951 where she lived until 1976. As a little girl, she dreamed of going to Australia someday as she had always been fascinated with the unique wildlife and bush creatures down under like the koalas, kangaroos, the Tasmanian devil and platypus!!
She graduated from Oklahoma State in 1974 with a degree in Elementary Education and started teaching that same year at Van Buren Elementary in Oklahoma City. In January of 1976 she left Oklahoma to go to Sydney Australia when she was hired to teach for the NSW Department of Education for two years. She spent two years teaching 1st grade at Granville Primary School, Granville NSW. It was the experience of a lifetime. She lived with fellow American educators who were also teaching over there and fell in love with the country and its history and people. Special friendships with roomies like Diana Ingle Bongiovonni(also from Oklahoma) and her husband Fred have continued to this day. The story of a unique group of young American teachers who found themselves teaching in Australia in the mid 70’’s could be a great novel in itself. What adventures they had!!
After her two years in Australia, Jeannie returned to Oklahoma and taught for one more year as a gifted and talented facilitator for Oklahoma City Public Schools. In February of 1979, she married Henry Poznanski, originally from New Jersey) who she had met and dated while in Sydney.
Henry and Jeannie moved to San Diego in 1980 and Jeannie remained there until 2016. She was a teacher for more 35 years with San Diego Unified School district and taught a variety of grades…the last 13 years she spent teaching 6th grade at Lewis Middle School.
Henry and Jean returned to Australia for a long vacation in summer of 1991 and it was on that trip that she convinced Henry to include Tasmania on their itinerary. There has never been a place that enchanted her like Tasmania which also has some of the most unique flora and fauna that she had ever seen. Since her time teaching in Australia, she was also interested in learning more about the native Australian Aboriginal people. When visiting the Aboriginal Museum in Devenport, Tasmania she asked them if they had a book that 5-7th graders would enjoy and that would give them an idea of what life was like for Tasmanian Aborigines. She got the Book The Magpie Boy, the story of Dreene, a young Aboriginal boy, by Beth Roberts. It is actually a prequel to Manganinnie, her most famous novel. When she returned to San Diego she shared it as a read aloud to her 6th graders. Upon hearing her read part of The Magpie Boy, her principal at the time, Pat Crowder, told her she really liked the book she was reading to her class.
As time passed Jeannie’s passion for Australia caught the interest of a fellow educator and counselor at her school, Steve Spiller at Green Elementary in San Diego. He was able to coordinate a job exchange between himself and a school counselor in Proserpine, Queensland. So Steve would go to Queensland and Roseanne Biscoe would come over to SanDiego for two years to be a counselor in San Diego.
Jeannie and Roseanne became great friends and it turned out Roseanne was also a native of Tasmania and was familiar with the books of Beth Roberts. As it turned out, Roseanne’s best childhood friend, Diana Thorpe, of Hobart ,Tasmania, also was a fan of the works of Beth Roberts!! This coincidence became an opportunity for Jeannie to go down to Tasmania and not only meet Diana Thorpe but specifically to meet and work with Beth. At the time in 1998…Beth had had many years as a successful author. Her most famous book, Manganinnie, was even made into a movie in Australia and was nominated for several academy awards. Manganinnie was eventually pub;lished in Japanese, Spanish, German, Italian, and in French, where in 1986 it was awarded the French Book of the Year.
On her visit to see Beth and Diana in December of 1998, Jeannie got to spend a lot of quality time with Beth. They even went down to Swansea and Oyster Bay for a few nights and Jeannie got to listen to Beth as she spun the ideas of her final book The Broomstick Wedding. Also hearing Beth’s stories behind her stories was fascinating. She wrote The Magpie Boy, which was a sequel to Manganinnie while on her own bush adventure in Tasmania .
Beth had taken over her own publishing in the last few years before she met up with Jeannie and Diana and by 1998 she was ready to sell her copyrights and let others continue her legacy. Diana and Jeannie proceeded to buy the copyrights to her books in 1999 and at that time launched Beth’s final book, The Broomstick Wedding, at the Hobart Museum of Art in Hobart Museum. It was a lovely event, attended by many of her Tasmanian fans. This was not just a launching of her final book but a celebration of all that Beth had accomplished as an honored and beloved Tasmanian author.
Jeannie and Diana republished Manganninnie and The Magic Waterfall early in the first year of their business under the newly titled Rainbow Bay Books of Hobart. They also continued to sell and promote previous books that they acquired under the sale of Beth’s copyrights.
Jeannie also republished Percy, The Tasmanian Devil Who Couldn’t Eat Meat in 2011. It was a favorite of her classes through the years.
Now as a retired educator, Jeannie and Diana have dedicated their time to promoting the books of Beth Roberts, starting with a new edition of Manganinnie and Percy, The Tasmanian Devil Couldn’t Eat Meat, with other books to follow soon! She and Diana are working in conjunction with Amazon Pro Hub and their amazing team to continue Beth’s legacy and introduce her enchanting and engaging stories to a new generation of Beth Roberts’ readers and fans! We are so excited that the timing is perfect to share the Tasmanian Tales of Beth Roberts to people around the world once again.