Justin D'Ath
Welcome to Creative Kids Tales, Justin D’Ath.
Justin D’Ath is an ingenious children and young adult’s author. He cleverly transports his readers on radical quests through his gripping stories. His ability to captivate his audiences through bursts of adrenaline is truly compelling.
Justin has authored more than 50 books. His tremendously popular Extreme Adventures series of books have been translated into 6 languages and has even been adapted for TV.
His contemporary fantasy novel, Pool, was shortlisted in the 2008 Victorian Premier's Awards and was a CBC Notable Book in 2008. Justin has also been recognised for his work by the YABBA, KOALA and BILBY Awards; where a number of his books have been short-listed. Another notable achievement of Justin’s was having his picture book Dinosaur Dreaming (illustrated by Mike Spoor) selected and awarded Picture Book of the Year by children in the 2012 Big Read Competition.
Justin is well regarded for his highly entertaining stories; his book Lost World Circus and the Mission Fox series are two of his most popular works.
He is highly skilled in his knack for organically building believable and engrossing characters. This could be attributed to his fun-loving nature and commitment to staying young at heart.
Like many of his characters, Justin has also lived a rather exciting life. He was raised on a farm in Otaki, New Zealand with eleven siblings. He was always a passionate storyteller. Most nights he and his brothers, Billy and Philip, would create imaginative stories to share with each other at bedtime.
Justin penned his first book at age nine. His pets were the inspiration behind his early works. His pet turtle Bubble and guinea pig Moriarty were turned into cartoons, with his story on Moriarty’s adventures filling up a complete exercise book. Justin embarked on writing his first novel at age eleven but struggled to get past page 35 where he experienced his first writers block.
Having children reignited Justin’s interest in storytelling. He would devotedly read to his children Fiona and Tim, or he would conceive fanciful tales where they would ultimately be the heroes, much as he did with his brothers.
As well as writing for children, Justin has been successfully writing novels for adults. His first published book was in fact for the adult market. The Initiate, an adult novel, won three awards from its release in 1989. His short stories for adults, have been published in 18 countries and have won 54 literary prizes. For twenty years Justin wrote solely for adults, in addition to juggling his other jobs: driving forklifts, building cars, picking fruit, mustering cattle, mining for iron, working in a laboratory, being a club manager in an Aborigine settlement, working in a sugar mill and teaching Professional Writing at TAFE.
It was his daughter, Fiona, who turned his attention to the magical world of contemporary children’s books. Despite his writing background, it took Justin another ten years to try his hand at it and we are very fortunate he has!
His message to encourage children to read, emphasising the joy and excitement that books can bring, is evidently grounded in each of his stories.
We cannot wait to see what Justin comes up with next!
Make sure you get your hands on his latest nail-bitting book titled Cooper, which is available across the country.
You can read more about the adventurous Justin D’Ath here: www.justindath.com
Read CKT's April 2017 interview with Justin D'Ath
Justin D'Ath's intro by Jacqueline de Rose-Ahern
Take a look at some of Justin D'Ath's books