| September 2009
Hi Kids,
In the past four months since I wrote my last diary entry many things have happened. Among other things, Children’s Book Week kept me busy with lots of schools’ visits around Sydney.
 And, speaking of Children’s Book Week, it’s the time when kids sometimes dress up as their favourite book characters for parades at school. I’ve had lots of photos of kids dressed as Selby or Emily Eyefinger or Bert Piggott (from Piggott Place and Piggotts in Peril) over the years. One that I received this year was of Meg, a little girl who dressed up as Emily Eyefinger. I loved her hair! She looks just Emily Eyefinger in Craig Smith’s wonderful illustrations in the books.
A little while ago I received an email from Lana Patterson, a fantastic drama teacher in northern Saskatchewan in Canada. She asked if the students at her school could perform one of the plays from my book Comedies for Kids. Of course, I was delighted. She and the kids rewrote of the plays and called it “Mystery at Murder Mansion” and they won the Northern Drama Festival competition for the Province of Saskatchewan. They then took the play to the Canadian national schools’ competition and won an award for “The Spirit of the Festival”. I only wish I’d been able to be there and see the play. Well done, kids!
Lana Paterson told me that she and her family live outside their town and they often have bears come right up to their house until their dog chases them away.
In June I went to America to see friends and relatives. I’m originally from Boston, Massachusetts and my sister still lives there. I stayed with her and her family . They have a dog named Selby. (What a silly name for a dog.) One thing I did in Boston was to go to the Boston Public Gardens to see the swan boats that I loved when I was little. These boats don’t have motors. The driver sits in the swan at the back and pedals, pushing the boat forward.
Also in this lovely park is a sculpture of ducks inspired by a famous old picture book called Make Way For Ducklings. (Not one of my books.)
Later I went up to Maine in the far northeast of America. Maine was cold and rainy and I was sick with the flu for weeks. Eventually I was able to do some boating in the ocean.
My niece and her husband took their daughter, Ji Lan, out in a boat for her first boat ride. She loved it so much that she didn’t want to take her life preserver off afterwards. She ate dinner with it on and she slept with it. I think she’ll be a ship's captain when she grows up.
 While I was in America I took some nature photos including one of a wild baby skunk that let me get very near it. (Fortunately it was too young to spray me.) And a squirrel. And I had some wonderful blueberry pie and lemon meringue pie.
Back in Sydney I started on a month of schools’ talks. It was great to be able to talk to kids all around Sydney and to read some poems to them from my new book, My Sister Has a Big Black Beard. A new book is always a bit of a worry because it’s impossible to guess whether kids will like it or not. They did and I was relieved. They loved Kerry Millard’s illustrations.
 Kerry is not only an illustrator but a cartoonist, a zoologist, a vet, a singer, a dancer, a clown and now she’s a painter as well. Her paintings are being shown at Gordon Library in Sydney right now. If you live near there, drop in and have a look or have a squiz at Kerry’s web site:
http://www.kerrymillard.com
The other exciting news is that my  son, won a Eureka Award for Environmental Research. This is a very big science honour here in Australia. Ian’s a mathematician and works for The Australian Antarctic Division in Tasmania. Right now is doing research to help save the whales.
Kids often ask about my cat, Jasper. Jasper is the same as always. He sleeps a lot but he also likes to play games. My wife and I throw him a rubber ball and he hits it back to us. Today I caught him playing with a plastic rat that I sometimes use when I read my poem “Quentin’s Lunch” in schools. (The poem is in My Sister Has a Big Black Beard. In the poem, a horrible little boy named Quentin eats a rat.)
I hope you’ve been enjoying 2009 and that the rest of the year is lots of fun for you.
Duncan Ball
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