Why Write About Bermuda in a Children's Book?

Today there is a beautiful photo of Bermuda on Bing Desktop.

My debut children's book Myra and the Magic Motorcycle features an Austrailan girl who goes on an adventure to Bermuda and learns about financial hardship faced by one family.

Many people have asked me why I chose Bermuda for this. The first answer is that when I was coming up with the ideas for what the magic motorcycle could do, travelling through the Earth (using GLOBE SLIDE) was one of them. I wanted Myra to be able to travel within Australia as well as to far-flung places all over the world. I have plans for many books in this series, and only time is my limiting factor.

The reason I started with Bermuda is because if you take the globe and draw a line from Australia to the other side you end up more or less in The Somer's Isles, or Bermuda! Furthermore I had heard that in Bermuda there was a disparity between the rich and the poor. Like many nations, including those that are part of the West, there are often sharp divides. And because Bermuda has many wealthy tourists visiting it, there are some things that the local simply cannot afford.

My only regret is that I haven't travelled to Bermuda myself.

I would love to be able to write from experience, but sadly I cannot afford to travel. One day!



Maybe another reason I have written about Bermuda is because I have fond memories of my favourite cartoon characters, from my childhood, visiting Bermuda. Including Garfield the cat and Merlin the wizard from Disney's The Sword in the Stone.