
An interview with Gabrielle Wang
Gabrielle Wang is an Australian children’s author and illustrator. She has published over twenty books, including many that fall into the Australian historical fiction genre. She was also the Australian Children’s Laureate in 2022 – 2023.
We recently spoke to Gabrielle about how she uses Trove to research her historical fiction children's books. She also uses Trove for family history research and shares some of the personal connections she’s found in Trove.

Using Trove for historical fiction research
‘I do a lot of research online, and in this respect, Trove is a real treasure.’
‘To read newspaper articles written by people of the day, is like discovering true capsules in time. Not only can one find interesting facts but importantly get a sense of attitudes and prejudices.’, Gabrielle says.
‘When writing the Poppy Books in the Our Australian Girl series published by Penguin Books Australia, I researched the First Nations artist, Tommy McRae.’

As an example. Gabrielle shares an historical article about Tommy McRae published by the Australian Town and Country Journal in 1881.
‘Reading articles like this one are fascinating albeit cringeworthy.’, she explains.
Elaborating on this, Gabrielle says:
‘Other things I pick up on Trove which you will never find in history books are tiny snippets of information that I can use in my novels. They give me a glimpse into the world of the past. Authenticity is in the tiny details.’
When researching in Trove, it’s often worth looking at the articles and advertisements around your newspaper search result, as Gabrielle has discovered.
‘Advertisements that surround the articles also provide valuable information on the kinds of goods ordinary people of a particular time liked to buy.’
Family connections
As well as using Trove to research her historical fiction books, Gabrielle has used it to research her own family’s story.
‘Trove was also invaluable while researching my family history.’
‘My maternal great grandfather, Jimmy Ah Kew, came to Australia from China in 1853 at the age of eighteen during the Victorian Gold Rush. He later became known as one of the pioneers of Wahgunyah, a river port town on the Murray River.’, Gabrielle says.
‘He owned a general store but also did contract clearing of land on a very large scale. On researching his name, I found quite a number of advertisements that he placed in local papers such as this one in The Pastoral Times, South Deniliquin.’

Gabrielle says her most exciting Trove find is an article on Jimmy Ah Kew’s wedding to his arranged bride. The article was published on 18 November 1887 in The Corowa Free Press and syndicated a week later in the Yarrawonga Mercury.
‘It reads like a page out of a novel, it is that descriptive.’, Gabrielle said.
As Trove’s digital collection continues to grow – and more articles are text corrected – so do the opportunities to solve family mysteries. Recently, for example, Gabrielle and her family were able to confirm the facts around Jimmy Ah Kew’s death, thorough an article published in The Albury Banner and Wodonga Express on 1 December 1899.
'It wasn’t long ago that this article popped up on Trove.’, she says.
‘The information in this short news item changed what we believed about Jimmy’s final days. The family always believed that he died in China but here is clear evidence that this wasn’t the case.’

What’s next?
So, what will Gabrielle research next? She tells us she is travelling back to the 1930s.
‘I have a new middle grade novel to be published by Penguin in July 2025. It is set in Melbourne and China in 1932 during the Great Depression. I am in the planning stages at the moment and once again, Trove is proving an invaluable source of information on so many levels.’
Many of Gabrielle Wang’s books can be found in Trove and are available from libraries around Australia. You can also listen to Gabrielle’s oral history interview recorded by Anna Zhu for the National Library of Australia’s recent Australians with Chinese heritage oral history project. There are even a series of portraits of Gabrielle that accompany the oral history interview.