Russell, James is a children’s author. For over twelve years he worked as a journalist, columnist and editor, including for the New Zealand Herald magazine Element. He is now a full-time Auckland-based writer, and father of two sons.

Commuting on the train during a particularly damp month, Russell decided to write down some of the stories he had been telling his two young boys. Inspired by the enthusiastic reaction of his sons, Russell developed his stories into the Dragon Brothers Trilogy, a series for 3–7 year olds.

The three rhyming-verse stories became a bestselling trilogy. In a New Zealand first, Russell developed an augmented reality (AR) app to accompany his books. The AR Reads app allows readers to hover their smart device above the page and see dragons and volcanoes come to life before their eyes – in a three dimensional magical map of Flynn and Paddy’s world.

That series developed into his five-book series The Dragon Defenders, which has sold over 130,000 copies and been translated into multiple languages. These, too, are brought to life by the AR Reads app.

Russell's historical junior fiction trilogy Children of the Rush have won Storylines Notable Book Awards and book one was a finalist in the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults and The NZ Booklovers Awards. Set in 1861, Children of the Rush is the story of Michael, Atarangi, and Siu, three children caught up in the dangerous and adventurous world of the gold rush.