From the Author

I began writing for my son several years ago, after having difficulty finding reading books that would lure him away from the computer. Like a lot of boys, he is computer mad, though he still enjoyed a book if it caught his interest. His reading age was advanced enough to easily manage teenage fiction, but so many had themes and issues that I wasn't comfortable with, and he wasn't interested in. I tried him on some of the classics, Jules Verne for example, which was successful, and he read and re-read Gary Paulsen's Hatchet series, the Phillip Pullman Dark Materials trilogy, all of the Harry Potter books, and Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl.

A lot of children's books are written solely for girls; others seem to be full of relationship dramas, absent mothers, handicapped family members, Dad with a new girlfriend... or boyfriend. I know all of this does happen, but my son was not especially keen to spend time reading books about these issues.

So I wrote Aquiliton for him. It is an adventure book, a little bit of fantasy and I hope a lot of fun. I have included some conservation issues, as it is never too early to learn to look after our world.

Like a lot of New Zealanders we grew up near the sea, and some of my earliest memories are of gathering pipis (a type of New Zealand shellfish) on a shallow beach, then back to our bach (holiday home) to steam them open on a sheet of corrugated iron above a fire. The sea has always been near and it is part of who we are. It is easy to write about something that you love. The characters for the book are a mixture of people I know and my imagination. I only hope some of my son's friends do not recognise parts of themselves in my writing. The humour also originated from friends and family. Anybody with three children will know what it is like to be in fits of laughter over the quips they come out with.