What Misery Guts taught Hugh Van Cuylenburg about true happiness

Can you ever truly make someone else happy? You could spend years searching for the answer to this existential question, but perhaps all it takes is some perspective from a fictional 12-year-old.

As part of Radio National's Top 100 Australian Books countdown, Life Matters has invited prominent Australians to share their favourite Australian children's book.

For Hugh Van Cuylenburg, the first book he can remember reading on his own has stuck with him forever, and the parallels to his own life have been profound.

Like Morris Gleitzman's Keith Shipley, he had to learn the hard way that true happiness comes from within.