Dragonspell  |
| Poppa McPhee Gets the Eggs |
| Sucked In |
| It's Terrible Tuesday |
| Frontier of Dreams |
Author John Parker with his cat Mister
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Scholastic New Zealand Auckland Phone +64-9 274 8112 The Booklover Auckland Phone +64-9 489 8836 Jabberwocky Children's Bookshop Auckland Phone +64-9 630 6827 Next Page Please Auckland Phone +64-9 486 2453 The Children's Bookshop Wellington Phone +64-4 387 3905 Children's Bookshop Christchurch Phone +64-3 366 5274 Auckland Phone +64-9 376 7283 Wheelers Bookshop Auckland Phone +64-9 479 7979 |
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Children As a fulltime freelance writer, author, and speaker since 1990, John Parker is able to write in, workshop on, or give talks about, the following:
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Here are eight books selected from the almost 130 titles written by John Parker.
For more titles see more about books PDF.
For more titles see more about books PDF.
Dragonspell
| Mister: | I can't understand why you wrote Dragonspell in a little room when you could have been sitting in the sun licking yourself. |
| John: | Well, writing is best done indoors – and writing's very satisfying, even though it's hard work sometimes. |
| Mister: | (shuddering) Hard work! Don't like the sound of that! |
| John: | And I really wanted to write Dragonspell. It's about someone who decides to fight a terrible dragon in a strange but clever way – through spelling. Sometimes brains and bravery are better than muscles. |
| Mister: | Mussels! I'm salivating! Oysters as well? |
| John: | Tell me when to laugh. Did you know that Dragonspell's been read over Radio NZ? And that there's a girl cat called Mitkin in Dragonspell? She's important in the book. |
| Mister: | A girl cat? Whaaooor! Can I meet her? Like, right now? |
| John: | You'll have to read the book. |
| Mister: | That sounds like hard work again. I feel a snoozle coming on. |
| John: | Don't go to sleep when we're having a conversation, Mister. It's rude. |
| Mister: | Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz |
Poppa Mc Phee Gets the Eggs
| John: | Awake again, I see. Want to hear about Poppa McPhee Gets The Eggs? |
| Mister: | All ears. |
| John: | Well, it's the second book I've written about this off-the-wall granddad called Poppa McPhee. When he runs out of eggs, he comes across this amazing yellow thing – and he's just got to have it! And does he get into trouble! |
| Mister: | Has this Poppa McPhee guy got a cat? |
| John: | Yessiree. She's called Marmalade. |
| Mister: | She! Hot stuff! Sounds like a must-read. But first ... |
| John: | Mister, you're absolutely impossible. |
| Mister: | Thank you. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz |
Sucked In
| Mister: | (waking up) Funny title! Is there a cat in it? |
| John: | It's all about a guy called Zainey who's teased at school because he's short... |
| Mister: | (louder) Is there a cat in it? |
| John: | ...so he buys this weird thing which he's going to use in a really strange way to make himself taller... |
| Mister: | (louder still) Is there a cat in it? |
| John: | ...but things get very messy and complicated for Zainey, as well as for his friend Dan, and it's just as well Caro Bennington has a Swiss Army pocket knife which she uses... |
| Mister: | (very loudly) IS THERE A CAT IN IT? |
| John: | (Hastily) No – but there is a cat, called Fleabag, in a follow-up novel I've written. It's called Sucked Out, and it'll be published by Walker Books in the middle of 2010. |
| Mister: | Fleabag! How unoriginal! Is that the best you can do? |
| John: | So you don't want Scotch fillet tonight? |
| Mister: | On second thoughts I find Fleabag a wonderful name for a cat. You are a genius. And remarkably handsome. |
| John: | That's better. |
TT's Terrible Tuesday
| Mister: | I haven't read TT's Terrible Tuesday. |
| John: | What? But you asked me to write it! What's the problem? |
| Mister: | It's too painful for me. I have a sensitive soul, you know. |
| John: | So you don't want to read about Top Tom's visit to the vet? And you don't want to look at the great re-illustrations by Jeffy James? |
| Mister: | (Covering his left ear) Don't talk about it! |
| John: | Or about Jabman and his nasty slobbering dog? |
| Mister: | (Covering his right ear) No more! |
| John: | Or about Top Tom's terrifying fall from the tree? |
| Mister: | (Covering both ears) Can't hear a thing. Wake me up when it's dinner-time. Scotch fillet, by the way. |
| John: | But, Mister, one fan told me he'd read the book 32 times! |
| Mister: | Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz |
Frontier of Dreams -
The Story of New Zealand
The Story of New Zealand
| Mister: | Give us the gravy. |
| John: | Well, it's a four-volume history, and probably the most family-friendly comprehensive history of New Zealand available. |
| Mister: | My word! |
| John: | About 130,000 of them, in fact. |
| Mister: | I suppose you're going to tell me what's in it? |
| John: | From the rocks of Gondwanaland, to the tangata whenua's first footprints on the country's beaches, to Cook in the bobbing Endeavour, to the sad end of missionary Thomas Kendall, to 'God's Own Country' prime minister Richard Seddon, to the 1905 All Blacks, to the mud and stench of World War One and trench foot, to the first Labour Party and one-armed John A. Lee, to World War Two and the Victoria Crosses of Charles Upham and Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa Ngarimu, to Robert Muldoon and Think Big, to Dame Whina Cooper, and to Rogernomics and the 1984 crash, and to David Lange and emails and mobiles and thousands of other important and absorbing events and facts and people – it's all here in these four easy-to-read volumes. |
| Mister: | Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz |
| John: | (pityingly) Cats have small brains. |
| Mister: | I heard that. |
| 'Frontier of Dreams is a superb achievement, a history ... with fascination on every page.' Trevor Agnew, in Magpies Volume 21 |
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Finalist - New Zealand Post Book Awards Shortlisted - Elsie Locke Award Winner - Spectrum Print Book Design Award |
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Good writing isn't easy. Samuel Johnson, the 18th century English writer, said, ‘That which is written without labour is read without pleasure.'
In other words, it takes time and effort to write well – but your reader will thank you for it. Knowing that, accept that your first draft will very rarely go the way you want it to. In Write On!, Joy Cowley's fine booklet for young writers (published Scholastic NZ), she says it's more important to let the first draft flow than to be too careful, fretting about mistakes. The first draft is a time for writing rather than for editing. It's good advice for all writers. After all, we can't make electricity until we've got some water. So go with the flow rather than for perfection and you'll soon have a river of words. Congratulations, you have written a first draft! |
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Frontier of Dreams -
The Story of New Zealand
Scholastic NZ 2005
A Land Discovered:
ISBN 1-86943-680-6
From Treaty to Nationhood:
ISBN 1-86943-681-4
The Weight of World Wars:
ISBN 1-86943-682-2
Into the 21st Century:
ISBN 1-86943-683-0
The Story of New Zealand
Scholastic NZ 2005
A Land Discovered:
ISBN 1-86943-680-6
From Treaty to Nationhood:
ISBN 1-86943-681-4
The Weight of World Wars:
ISBN 1-86943-682-2
Into the 21st Century:
ISBN 1-86943-683-0
| When Mister is not snoozling, he may condescend to answer questions about life, and, just possibly, about John Parker's work. |  |
