I’m honoured to be part of the Anzac Stories: Behind the Pages exhibitions which will run throughout Australia in 2017 and 2018, and will showcase Australian and New Zealand contemporary children’s books set in wartime, and the stories behind the creation of those books. The exhibition is the brainchild of the fantastic New Zealand author Maria Gill, who initiated a similar exhibition in New Zealand earlier. Boards featuring individual books and writers will be exhibited in libraries across Australia. My two World War One novels, 1914 (Scholastic, 2014) and My Father’s War (Scholastic 2011) and the stories and research behind them, will be part of the exhibition. There’s also an Anzac Stories blog, with info about each book and a short interview with their writers. Here’s a little extract from mine: 

Doing the research on the ground, in northern France especially, made it all become so real and so emotionally affecting. Both books blend my two main cultural influences: French and Australian, and that also felt like a very positive thing, especially as the ties between France and Australia forged during that terrible time are still very strong, particularly in the Somme region of northern France, where they have a saying, N’oublions jamais l’Australie : ‘Let us never forget Australia’

You can read the whole thing here.