Girl on the Roof

This is a new book. Condition: Brand New.

Nine decades, one life - a remarkable memoir by an Australian living treasure.

Valerie Brown was a bookish, rebellious child who had made an important discovery when she escaped to the roof of her large family home. As she watched the activities of her family down below, she found that they did not match the ideals her parents had taught to her. Nor did her family's actions meet the ideals put forward in the books she was reading.

This simple observation led to a lifetime of concern about the damage done to a society when there are gaps between their community's good intentions and their practices. She and her team delivered pioneering change programs to bridge such gaps - in partnership with a prime minister, each of the three levels of government, four universities, multiple communities, and several activist groups.

Her interests in health and the environment led her to design and deliver initiatives such as the first Australian science degree in health education; change an outdated public health department into the emerging New Public Health; design and deliver the country's first national drug summit; and establish community health training for doctors and nurses at Tribhuvan University in Nepal. After a stroke in her eighties, she recovered to supervise doctoral students and co-author five books on social change, including the highly successful Tackling Wicked Problems.

Valerie Brown AO is still promoting, discussing, and thinking about positive social changes. After nine decades, she is still that girl on the roof.

'An inspiring tale of a brilliant career and a remarkable life.'
-Niki Savva

'A fascinating account of a woman's life forged across changing eras from the lingering Victorian-era attitudes of her childhood in the 1930s to the Internet and ChatGPT era of today ... An inspiring read for budding young female scientists, or for anyone who has self-doubts in the face of societal challenges. This book would be a good one to include in school libraries.'
-Helen Eddy, ReadPlus

Praise for Tackling Wicked Problems (co-authored with John A. Harris and Jacqueline Russell):

'One of the critical questions posed by the ecological crisis concerns the nature of the knowledge we need to deal with it. Tackling Wicked Problems tackles the problem by offering a unique transdisciplinary approach to inquiry, one that is capable of integrating the natural and social sciences. Integrating both empirical and normative investigation, it offers a framework that is at the same time theoretical, epistemological and practical. The book brings together the full range of separate but yet interconnected perspectives that have to be brought to bear on the most challenging questions of our time.'
-Frank Fischer, Professor of Politics and International Studies, Rutgers University

Book details and technical specifications

Format: Paperback / softback
ISBN13: 9781761382208
Published: June 2026

Number of pages: 160
Width: 136 mm
Height: 208 mm
Depth: 18 mm

Publisher: Scribe Publications