It is the 1640s and Claesgen lives in Batavia with her stepmother, Jannetje, waiting weeks, and sometimes months, for her father, Abel Tasman, to come back from his sea voyages. When he returns, Tasman delights his young daughter with tales of treacherous oceans and relentless wild weather, hazards of unseen coral reefs and endless days of empty ocean, encounters - both friendly and hostile - with indigenous peoples, murder and theft, and the threat of smugglers and pirates. Inspired by a 1637 painting of the Tasman family by Jacob Cuyp and meticulously researched, My Father's Islands is a fictional story told through the voice of Claesgen. Tasman's young daughter's curiosity about her father's life takes the reader on his voyage on the unchartered seas of the Pacific Ocean, in the search for unknown lands and new sources of riches for the powerful trading company, the Dutch East India Company. My Father's Islands opens up to children a significant, but little known, part of Australia's history - the European discovery of parts of the Unknown South Land by the heroic explorer and navigator, Abel Janszoon Tasman.
|
I was born at Brighton, South Australia, on 26th October 1931, and grew up in a little house on the sandhills by the sea. I loved swimming and playing on the beach. Then we moved to live in Sydney, New South Wales, and lived in an old house near the bush, where I learnt to know and love watching all sorts of creatures. My writing started when I was 10 in the children's pages of a nature magazine. My sister and I always had pets and my stories are often about people who care about animals and birds.