Her beloved characters explore mysterious worlds and solve challenging riddles — and it turns out Australian children's author Emily Rodda is something of a riddle herself.

For starters, her name is not Emily Rodda. It's Jennifer Rowe.

Rowe was working in children's publishing in the 1980s when she wrote her first children's book, Something Special. Eager to get an honest reaction from her colleagues at Angus & Robertson, she submitted the manuscript under her grandmother's name, Emily Rodda.

"I love mysteries, and I loved the idea of sending this incognito book through," she said.

Her colleagues loved the book. When Rowe's boss, Richard Walsh, asked her to phone "Emily Rodda" and find out more about the author, Rowe told him the truth of her identity.

"He was most surprised," said Rowe, who was encouraged to stick with the pen name.

Something Special was published in 1984 with just a few people at the organisation knowing her secret.

"But then it won the Children's Book of the Year Award the following year, and [Walsh] ... was so excited that he told everybody it was me," she said.

While Rowe's real identity is an open secret these days, most of her young readers still believe the author of the Rowan of Rin and Deltora Quest series is called Emily Rodda. It's an identity the author cherishes, and happily answers to.

"I sometimes think I'm more Emily than Jennifer, really," she said.

Rodda's heroes must solve puzzles and mysteries to save the day. ( Supplied: Omnibus Books and Scholastic )

Mystery and magic

In a career spanning more than 30 years, Emily Rodda has written more than 70 books for children. Her books often take young readers to magical lands, where heroes must solve puzzles and mysteries to save the day.

In Rodda's latest book, His Name Was Walter, a group of school children discover a book inside an abandoned house. ( Supplied: HarperCollins Australia )

In the fantasy book Rowan of Rin, the young hero needs to unravel a mysterious prophecy to discover the secret of the mountain and save his village. In the science fiction novel Finders Keepers, computer-mad Patrick solves a series of riddles to find three lost objects, sent to his neighbourhood from a parallel world on the other side of the "barrier".

"I love anagrams and riddles and mysteries and word games of all kinds," said Rodda, who finds the creation of her famous puzzles both challenging and rewarding.

The author is also a big fan of murder-mystery novels, which have inspired her intricate story plotting.

"I very much enjoy planting clues where they won't be noticed," she said.

"It's like being a magician, like doing something with your left hand while the right hand's really hiding the rabbit."

Rodda's latest book, His Name Was Walter, sees a group of school children discover a handwritten story book inside an abandoned country house. While the fairy tale they read seems to be set in a different world, the clues eventually reveal a secret much closer to home.

"The question is, what happens when real people find Walter's story, and how the two pieces of the jigsaw come together," she said.

Generous and honest

As her career continues well in to its fourth decade, Emily Rodda now has fans across multiple generations of Australian readers.

Rodda's Deltora Quest fantasy series was adapted into a Japanime series. ( Supplied: Scholastic )

She is especially proud of her Deltora Quest fantasy series, which encouraged scores of "non-readers" to pick up a book.

"It's terribly gratifying to have them say, 'Oh, I never read books before, but then I read this ... and now I do'."

She describes her young readers as a generous but "dreadfully honest" audience. While an adult might persist with a dull or ponderous book because it's "good for them", children are far harder to please.

"They read the first chapter and if it's boring they just put it aside and never think about it again," she said.

And to keep those kids turning the pages, she said the secret is never to underestimate her audience. While her books are written with a child-friendly vocabulary, she said she never shies away from complex and challenging stories.

"Children, certainly, of nine up, are far more sophisticated than most people realise," she said.

"I just find them a fascinating audience to write for and that's one of the reasons I've been continually drawn back to it."

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His Name Was Walter is out through HarperCollins Australia.