Nearly at the tail end of Book Week / Month and one of my final vists for this year was to the lovely school at Dobroyd Point. I know this school quite well as it is near my old stomping ground -- where I spent my early years in primary and high school! And I also visited this school a few years ago so it was lovely to be welcomed back to the school.

The librarians have done a splendid Sounds Spooky investigation in the primary grades - in fact throughout most of the school - so it was wonderful to be able to chit chat to the students about the inspiration behind the book ... some of the students even knew the house that was solidly in my brain when I wrote the text. Thankfully, there was no one who now lives in the Sounds Spooky house althrough there was one student who does live very close to my old house, and also to the Sounds Spooky inspiration house!
And I realised this afternoon too that I don't have a picture of the house so straight after school it was a quick drive and here is the house that was clearly in my head when I wrote Sounds Spooky. It still looks a little like the house that I remember - complete with creaking squeaking gate (left hand corner of photo) although the trees are taller and bushier.




Straight on to Year 5 and more Sounds Spooky, and a discussion on historical fction too ... but then the real task - writing narratives. Like most folks there were quite a few stumbles as I told them to write about anything they would like to write about. The need for inspiration and ideas was discussed and then the writing continued. I was rather intrigued about a car - the name of which was new to me and which I could not pronounce ... but for one student it was an easy writing task. He knew absolutely everything about the car (which caused much laughter when I called it a gazzoomby umby car)! A chat about descriptions and details and plotting and planning and then we were already at lunch break time (love the lunch time before midday). After lunch it was the turn for year 6 with a session much the same as year 5.

My school day done it was a few minutes drive to my old stomping ground for photos and time to sit in my car and remember!

Today was definitely a day of memories of growing up, of my early years in Haberfield, of vines and creapers, of gmaes and schools, or walking home, of playing in a tree house that I built, of the old house and those spooky sounds.

Thanks Barbara for organsing a lovely day.