Hi to all the Aquinas readers!

Ms Kirkland has asked me to say a few words about ‘Tomorrow, When the War Began’. So here are my few words. When I was growing up I read a lot of stuff about World War II, and kept wondering what would have happened if Japan had invaded Australia. For one thing, I probably would never have been born, but I did wonder how I would cope if someone invaded us. In real life, probably not very well, but my fantasies were a different story. That’s the whole point of having fantasies of course!

I was also interested in writing a story set in the bush and on farms, as those settings seemed to have disappeared from books in recent years. And I was interested in writing a book that showed teenagers as (I think) they really are, instead of the unpleasant ways they are usually depicted in tabloids and on those boring current affairs television shows.

Once I started really caught up in the action, but also in the development of the characters. I never knew what was going to happen next, and it was fun trying to find solutions for the problems and traps I had created for Ellie and her friends. I realised more and more as I wrote the books that the essence of all novels is that they pose problems and then attempt to solve them. And of course neat slick solutions are never satisfactory, because in real life there are no neat slick solutions…

Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading the book, and even some of its sequels perhaps.

All the very best,

John Marsden