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Here
you can read extracts from some interviews with Kelly and articles in
the media:
Gulf News (April 2006)
A Swashbuckling Trilogy
Waiheke author Kelly Gardiner has just
published Ocean without End , the first book in her Swashbuckler
Trilogy for young readers.
The trilogy traces the adventures of 12-year-old Lilly Swann who is
abducted from her island home by pirates.
Kelly says her books are the style of those she admired as a child.
"When I was a kid I read Rosemary Sutcliff, Geoffrey Trease and
Ronald Welch. They really changed the way children's literature was
written. The novels were painstakingly researched and kids got a history
lesson without having to wade through a bucket of facts."
She has consciously written in the tradition of the great swashbuckling
tales with all the classic elements including storms at sea, sword fights,
evil captains, kidnapping and
slavery. "But I've given those traditions a twist. Things are never
what they seem. Firstly, the narrator is a girl whose 'supernatural'
skill is that she could read and write and navigate which
was rare for the 19th century, and secondly she can swordfight."
Kelly learnt to fence as a child and several times represented her home
state of Victoria, Australia, in the junior team. "So I know it
is possible for a 12-year-old girl to beat a clumsy old pirate."
Likewise her painstaking historical research, which was in part conducted
on the net, also took Kelly to Malta where the trilogy is set. "I
took all three drafts with me and retraced every step," she says.
The books are based on real historical events "worked in"
with fiction. " It took five months to write the narrative but
there was an awful lot of research. It takes forever to immerse yourself
in the history of the period."
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Reading Time (May 2006)
During the second Sydney
Children’s Book Council of Australia Conference, ‘Book Now’,
I spoke with Australian children’s authors who have been living
and working outside of Australia.I had a really interesting conversation
with Kelly Gardiner about the very different life that she has, her
career and the fascinating novel that she has written. She is a very
interesting person, with a great personality and a charming manner.
Her first published novel for children, Ocean Without End,
is the first in the Swashbuckler trilogy. There is a website at www.swashbuckler.co.nz
which contains lots of information about the world of the novel, the
author, links to her blog and the opportunity to ask questions. It is
also possible to read an extract from the novel. Teacher’s notes
are also available for downloading from this site.
This is an action packed adventure novel, and a wonderful read. It should
appeal to younger readers, both boys and girls, but it is of interest
to all age groups and very well written...
Kelly Gardiner grew up in Melbourne, and has been a community worker
and also a journalist. She lives on an island in New Zealand's Hauraki
Gulf. This is quite a small island, about 5,000 houses, lots of weekenders,
a 35 minute ferry ride to Auckland. She still works as a journalist
for a publication for small farmers called Lifestyle Block,
but she works on this for two weeks then on her own writing for two
weeks.
This location is obviously ideal to be writing about the sea and pirates,
but Lily Swann is a redoubtable character in her own right, resourceful
and good with a sword. I am really looking forward to reading the next
two books in the trilogy.
- Chris Donnelly
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