Out on the Water Twelve Tales of the Sea - launching this Thursday!

Out on the Water Twelve Tales of the Sea - launching this Thursday! Tessa Duder; illustrated by Bruce Potter New collection evokes the adventure of sailing and the sea for younger readers Renowned children’s author Tessa Duder and illustrator Bruce Potter have combined to produce a stirring collection of twelve stories about kids out on the water around New Zealand. The stories in Out on the Water range from a girl’s experience of her first Optimist regatta to a boy learning the ropes on a tall ship from Sydney to Auckland in the 1880s. Each story features a full-page line drawing, and weaves into the text a rich thread of sailing words and knowledge (helped by a glossary of language of the sea). This is Tessa Duder’s first fiction for young adults in over ten years. Her most recent young adult nonfiction is The Story of Sir Peter Blake – and one of the new stories is a fictionalised account of Peter Blake and brother Tony on an after-school sail across Waitemata Harbour. In the book’s introduction, Tessa writes how the book answers the request from a grandson for stories about children going sailing. “So here are twelve stories about young people having a wide range of experiences on the water – inshore as crew or skipper, or as crew on offshore voyages.”

Tessa, who lives on Auckland’s North Shore, is a keen sailor with a long-standing commitment to the sport in New Zealand, from tutoring Optimist sailors to her work for the Spirit of Adventure Trust. Out on the Water will be launched in Takapuna, Auckland this Thursday 6 November.