Her recent picture book with Coral Tulloch, `One Small Island` received the Wilderness Society's 2012 Environment Award for Children`s Literature. Her picture book, `Are We There Yet?`, won the CBCA Picture Book of the Year Award in 2005, and `Running with the Horses` was an Honour Book in the 2010 CBCA Book of the Year Awards and 2010 Prime Minister`s Literary Awards.

Alison is involved in many community art projects and spends part of every year travelling to remote Indigenous communities, using her books to help children and adults write and draw about their own lives.

During 2012-2013 Alison and Boori Monty Pryor share the prestigious position of inaugural Australian Children`s Laureate.