What I did on my holiday

I need a holiday!
The last few weeks I've been rushing around madly, working, studying and also letting The Pirate's Revenge loose on the world. Well, on New Zealand, anyway.
Thanks to everyone at the schools I've visited for welcoming me, and asking such intelligent (sometimes unanswerable) questions:
~ Kristin School
~ Kohimarama School
~ Takapuna Normal
~ Pinehurst Primary
~ Marist College
~ Whangaparaoa School.

In the meantime, I've been reading some great books, including:
First, Automaton, a new graphic novel by Gary Crew and Aaron Hill, set in the factory where the famous inventor Thomas Edison created a set of robotic dolls - which nobody wanted.
Then there were some classics, such as Calabrian Quest by Geoffrey Trease, a modern day adventure set in southern Italy, involving an amateur archaeological exploration, the Mafia and government intrigue.
But even better was The Children of Green Knowe, the first in L. M. Boston's mystical series about a house that is haunted in the most delicious way. And I re-read The Story of the Treasure Seekers, by Edith Nesbit, which I hadn't read for ages and enjoyed even more, I think, this time around. The first time I just read it it as a treasure hunt, whereas now I think it's a very funny picture of the family and of the narrator, Oswald.

And I loved this story by Lucy Mangan in The Guardian about her favourite kids' books. I'll have to think about mine, and write about those later, since people often ask.

Lastly, a few recent reviews of my books.
Ocean Without End:
Upstart magazine (reviewed by Candice, 12, of Whanganui)
Australian Women's Weekly NZ edition (reviewed by Tessa Duder)

The Pirate's Revenge:
The reviewer in Boating NZ reckons it's "a great escape for young mariners stuck in the doldrums", while Magpies Online's Trevor Agnew wrote:

Kelly Gardiner uses Lily's first person narrative to keep the mood of the story cheerful ... The tone of the tale may be light but nevertheless the human suffering involved in war and piracy is not ignored.

The knock on the door

In The Guardian recently, Australian illustrator Robert Ingpen explained why he is hooked on classic books, and why he wanted to produce a new version of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (a copy of which, signed by Ingpen, is among my prized possessions):

When blind Pew knocks on Admiral Benbow's door in Treasure Island it's "the most scary sound in literature," he says. "It comes as a sound to you by the skill of the writing and the vision of the man. You hear the sound and, if you hear that sound when you're nine years old and you've read it yourself, you'll read forever."