Children from Port Chalmers School gathered recently at the Port Chalmers Town Hall to hear from author Swapna Haddow, who shared how she used experiences from her own life to create a variety of books for young people.
Haddow played a game of Two Truths and a Lie with the children, revealing how funny experiences from her past helped inform her writing choices.
One of her true stories was an experience when she was eight and a bit of "pigeon poo" accidentally landed in her mouth.
"I was sitting down on a bench, minding my own business, and a pigeon pooed so hard on my arm.
"And I went ‘eww’, and a bit went in my mouth."
However, this led her to write 25 years later a series called Dave Pigeon, inspired by the event.
"It is now a best-selling series, we’ve sold some quarter of a million books."
Another experience Haddow had was working as a panda keeper while on holiday in China.
She described making "Panda cake", which is cake made of eggs, tofu, corn and rice.
"And as a result, I was inspired to write a series of books called Bad Panda.
"She is a very naughty panda, she has tantrums."
A third funny story occurred when her son was five, and he told his classmates that his dad was a grizzly bear.
"The reason he was confused is because when we went to the library, he got out lots of books about bears, because he liked reading books about bears.
"So he read about grumpy bears, he read about bears who like honey.
"Then he looked at his dad and he was like ‘oh, my dad’s quite grumpy and my dad likes honey’, and so he thought his dad was a bear."
This episode was the source of inspiration for her book entitled My Dad is a Grizzly Bear.
"It is all about what it might be like to live with an actual grizzly bear."
The children were then entertained by a reading of Haddow’s latest book, But Then ... The almost true story of an overdue book.
"My very good friend forgot to return her book for five years, and she is a librarian."
Once again, real-life experiences inspired Haddow’s creative process.
