Ark in the Park in Italy: Arco nel Parco
I was just putting the international Ark in the Park covers in the case for my day with Year 3 at Mt Scopus tomorrow (they've been reading Ark in the Park) when I remembered that I hadn't copied the new one yet. So here's Arco nel Parco - the Italian translation. Isn't it cheerful!
Messy desk inspiration
This mightn't have been what first inspired "Too Much Stuff" – but it does explain why I related to the story!
More searching for titles
For the last month I've been searching for a title for the Nim's Island sequel. The working title was Nim's New York, which I'd never seen as a good book title – but having called it that for the last year, it hasn't been easy to find a better one. I've done all my usual tricks - meditated, gone for walks, tried to put it right out of my mind, done a very quick read of the whole manuscript hoping words will jump out at me, brainstorm writing, written a tagline (a one sentence synopsis) for the book and meditated again.
And meditating right after working out a tagline came up with one that I think might be it: Nim's Secret Journey.
Now to wait a few days, see how it seems then and what my publisher and editor think...
Too Much Stuff is born
On Wednesday I went to St Monica's Primary School in Kangaroo Flat to launch Too Much Stuff! It's an Aussie Nibble, illustrated by Kerry Millard.
And why travel all the way up to St Monica's? Well, because this story came from my friend Julie, a few years ago, telling me about her daughter's bedroom that was so messy she couldn't fit in her new desk. Her dad kept saying, 'When your bedroom's tidy, we'll build your desk.' So she tidied, threw things out, gave things away... and held an auction! Finally, in the middle of the night on the third day of cleaning, she was finished.
So she woke up her dad, and together, they built her desk.
It was such a lovely story I had to write it - and obviously I had to launch it at her primary school.
And what a launch! Some of the grades had made "messy bedrooms' in their classrooms (what a hardship that would have been!); one had a garage sale. Unfortunately I ran out of time to see the displays that the older grades had done about Across the Dark Sea.
But the best thing was meeting the kids, who were so excited about a book about one of their former students. What a fun day!
