NORMAN’S BIO

Norman Jorgensen began writing stories when in primary school and had a story about his school read on the ABC Radio Argonaut’s Club, but it took many years for his first picture book, In Flanders Fields, to be published. Beautifully illustrated by Brian Harrison-Lever, this is the story set in World War One and tells of a homesick young soldier who risks his life to rescue a robin caught in the barbed wire of no man’s land. In Flanders Fields won the CBCA Picture Book of the Year Award in 2003, the first of many awards, and the first of a dozen books he has created for children and young people.

Norman fell in love with books at an early age and has spent nearly all his life working in the book trade surrounded by the works of authors and illustrators he admires. He developed a love of history from reading historical novels, as well as from watching old Hollywood movies, and these influences are often reflected in his own work.

He was born in Broome, in the tropical north of Western Australia, the eldest of four brothers, and lived in several country towns throughout the state until his family moved to Kalamunda, in the hills above Perth,He now lives in a 100-year-old house near Perth with his wife, also a children’s book devotee, and his collection of books and old movies. In his spare time, he loves to read, travel and take photographs, especially of castles, cathedrals, villages, battlefields, sailing ships and all the things that make history so exciting!

Langkawi

The Smugglers’ Curse

Australian stories are very important to Norman, and he has a love of his country’s history. Unlike the English and American books he read as a child, always set overseas, he is proud that his stories are almost always located in Western Australia. He feels it is important that readers can see their own lives reflected in a landscape that is their own and that they can recognise

In 2011 Norman teamed with talented debut illustrator, James Foley, to produce his latest picture books, The Last Viking, and The Last Viking Returns. These fabulously illustrated books, about a boy who outwits local bullies by channelling his inner Viking, are a lovely blend of gentle wisdom, fun, courage and imagination as well as a glimpse into Norse history and mythology.

His latest novel, The Smugglers’ Curse, was being published late in 2016. It is an exciting, action-packed adventure set in Broome, Fremantle, Albany and South-East Asia in the final years of the nineteenth century. Written in classic piratical style, it should appeal to many young readers and promises to be a huge hit.