Across the Dark Sea – the book arrives!
My author copies of Across the Dark Sea arrived last week, and it looks lovely. Donna Rawlins’ black and white illustrations are stark and evocative – and, as a representative of the Victorian Vietnamese Association said when I gave him the book, “truly depict the memory of the story, the story of the Vietnamese Boat People.”
I feel honoured to have been able to write this book, and hope that I can arrange some sort of local – Melbourne – launch or celebration for it to honour the people who inspired it as well as those who helped me with the background to write it. It will be launched in Sydney next week with three other books from the National Museum of Australia’s Making Tracks series, at the Book Expo in conjunction with the CBCA conference.
In the meantime, have a look at the website pages the Museum has created for it, at: http://nma.gov.au/play/making_tracks.
That page includes all four just-released books: Across the Dark Sea is at the bottom of the page. I won’t link it directly to the Explore ‘Across the Dark Sea’ page because then you’d miss the fantastic interactive activities: you can even have a go at navigating your own boat from Vietnam to Australia. I failed dismally, which won’t surprise anyone who knows me….
Wendy Orr is a Canadian-born Australian writer. Her books for children and adults have been published in 27 countries and won awards around the world. Nim’s Island and Nim at Sea have also become feature films, starring Jodie Foster and Abigail Breslin (Nim’s Island) and Bindi Irwin (Return to Nim’s Island.) Her latest book is Cuckoo’s Flight, a companion to the highly acclaimed Bronze Age novels Dragonfly Song and Swallow’s Dance. Read full bio
