Be ‘Orr-inspired’ by Nim’s Island

Wendy Orr, award winning author of Nim’s Island, now a blockbuster movie starring Jodie Foster and Abigail Breslin, will be speaking at the Kawana and Caloundra libraries on Wednesday 4 June as part of the Voices on the Coast youth literature festival.

Nim’s Island is about a young girl named Nim who lives on a deserted volcanic island in the Pacific with her marine biologist father Jack, who researches marine plankton and writes for National Geographic. Her mother is lost at sea, supposedly swallowed by a whale.

Nim is accompanied everywhere by her best friends, a sea lion and a bearded dragon. She lives in a tree house served by solar and wind power with her father, and they survive on a diet of home-grown root vegetables, mashed with meal worms for protein.

Nim has a vivid imagination and in her mind brings adventure stories written by Alex Rover to life. When her dad also gets lost at sea, Nim reads an email from Alex to her Dad and asks her for help. Despite being an un-adventurous woman who rarely ventures out of her apartment, Alex goes to Nim’s rescue.

Wendy’s career spans 20 years with highlights including ‘Leaving it to You’, which was short-listed for the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year in 1993; ‘Ark in the Park’, which won the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year in 1995; and ‘Peeling the Onion’, which won the Honour Book for the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year in 1997.

Sunshine Coast residents are welcome to hear Wendy speak about her writing, books and adventures at Kawana Library on Wednesday 4 June from 1pm to 2pm, and at the Caloundra Library on Wednesday 4 June from 3.30pm to 4.30pm.

Bookings are essential by phoning Kawana Library on 5444 8022 or Caloundra Library on 5491 1255.