GENERAL





  



FUN STUFF

Template provided free by WEBalley
 

For ages 12 to Adult

'The best teenage book I have read in a long, long time... Now that I have finished it, where is the next one?' Hellene, The Children's Bookshop, Beecroft, 28/1/02 'Anita Bell handles the action scenes brilliantly… a great gung-ho read for middle to upper secondary' Sally Harding, Magpies, vol 16 no 5, November 2001 'Ambitious, dense and stylized…' Graeme Blundell, The Australian Review, 16/3/02 'A fast and furious young adult novel… It has the speed, parallel plots and alternating character viewpoints found in modern thrillers.' Australian Bookseller & Publisher, 1/10/01

Review for Teacher Librarians
'Crystal Coffin would appeal to young people with a love of books about adventure, the challenge of solving life and death problems and a young hero who became involved in more than he bargained for… The title of the book features in the story throughout but it is not as gruesome as it sounds! ...It certainly moves along at a fast pace and makes one want to keep reading to see what happens next. The prologue is excellent and I dare anyone to read just that and not have to continue. I was particularly impressed by the acknowledgements for technical advice - what an enormous amount of research the author undertook. Good to see that she could be bothered to make it correct even though a work of fiction. Too many writers are too lazy to do this and it shows in the finished work. Anita Bell is to be congratulated on her effort.' Jan Jackson, Reviewing SA, 25/07/04

Extract from Crystal Coffin

Prologue
The stalker braked at the traffic lights and looked at his watch. Midnight, which meant he had plenty of time.

He waited for a green arrow and turned left off Roma Street into the overnight car park, adjacent to Brisbane's interstate train station. He drove up two levels until he could park his Mercedes within sight of the main ticketing gate. Then he circled slowly.

Only eight other cars parked on this level. One was close to where he wanted to be and he backed into the space in front of it, leaving only one space for someone to park between him and where he expected the girl to appear.

He smiled, thinking that he could keep watch for her through the dark glass of his driver's side window without even straining his neck. Then he set the alarm on his watch to wake him at 9:15am. He doubted that he'd sleep that long. Taxis would start pulling into their rank to his left after five o'clock and from then on, it would only get busier. But that still gave him time to have breakfast at a local cafe, freshen up in the station's traveller facilities and ensure his men were in place before her train arrived. It also gave him time to make a few phone calls - from a phone booth instead of his mobile - to add to the illusion for police that he was still working in Sydney.

The plan wasn't foolproof, he knew. She could take another exit off the platform. There were at least three others that he knew of, but he'd already taken precautions to prevent that. If the girl wanted to survive in a strange town, he knew she'd need money and a place to stay and he'd provided all the right breadcrumbs to help her achieve those.

She'd step out of her economy class carriage at 11:17am and see an advertisement for a reputable employment agency right in front of her. There'd be another one at the top of the steps to the subway and more along the walls of the underground corridor. Each would have a removable sticker placed over them, advertising free accommodation for the first five interstate applicants that day. One of his men would hand her a promotion leaflet, promising that the agency was only a short walk around the corner. Another would shout similar messages to commuters until she had passed. And a third would wait outside on the street and arrange an accident for her in front of a bus or truck if she failed to take their bait by heading the wrong way.

He shifted over to the front passenger seat of his car and nestled his head against the soft leather. His hand slid down to the electric controls on the side and he adjusted the angle of the seat until it was almost as comfortable as a four star hotel bed. Then he locked the doors. All he had to do now was the fun part - following the girl from the agency to the country town where he needed her to stay for a while until he was ready to take care of her permanently.

And in the meantime, he could sleep.

Story Outline (low level spoilers)

A stalker is hunting a teenaged girl as she travels from Sydney to a small rural town in southeast Queensland. At the same time, horses are being led to slaughter on the outskirts of the town. Protesters are trying to prevent this from happening. A young man, while attempting to rescue his favorite stallion from the abattoir, also frees the other horses. Using the confusion, he escapes and returns to what was, until recently, his home farm…

Bouncing from one kind of battlefield to another, Jayson Locklin is a 19 year old soldier, who escapes a village siege during the UN "Police Action" in East Timor and stows away on a flight back to Australia to find out why his father committed suicide. Hunting for clues, he is the young man who rescues the horses, while intent on proving that his father's suicide was murder so he can reclaim his inheritance and secure a home for his two sisters before military police track him down for the misunderstanding over his orders and actions during the village siege in ET.

But Locklin is no longer the innocent country lad who was compelled by his father to join the army. He uses the full scope of his military skills to avoid detection and track down clues to his father's killers. He finds a crystal jewel box in the shape of a coffin, which haunts him with reminders of the mission he tried to salvage in East Timor.

His situation complicates further as he meets Nikki Dumakis, the young girl who arrives in town wearing an angel pendant that he realises is missing from the coffin jewel box. Suspicious of each other, Locklin is forced to keep an eye on her too until he discovers that the civilian detectives hunting Nikki are only doing so, because her mother has been a victim of the same international crime cartel that killed his father and are now stalking Nikki too. And while the town prepares for its annual celebration, the two reluctantly combine forces, a process which climaxes as Locklin's beloved stallion is mortally wounded and he's faced with the toughest decision of his life - to end the pain of his best friend or save the girl who holds the key to his father's death.

In a twist of fate and determination, the top brass discover the truth behind Locklin's proposed resolution for the situation and see a possibility for harnessing his talents for another mission… Project Apocalypse, the chilling sequel. (Also for ages 12 to adult, in stores December 2005)

Note: Crystal Coffin also has a spin-off series for younger readers aged 8 to 12, called Kirby's Crusaders, featuring Jayson's younger thrill-seeking sister, Kirby.

Support resources for teachers
A wide range of free teacher's notes and resources are available through the links below:

Virtual tours of the scenes of real places used in the novel

Background technical data for key research notes acquired during the process of writing, including details of the advance technologies which were recently invented in Australia and now used and on-sold by the Australian Defence force to co-ordinate civilian as well as military assets.

Background historical data around the first "hot confrontation" between Australian troops and "rebel militia" in East Timor, Dec, 1999, due mainly to the misunderstanding of where territorial boundaries were because UN troops were using satellite imaging maps, while rebels used photocopies of maps from a school atlas which hadn't been corrected since the original Dutch settlers surveyed boundaries over 200 years earlier.

Sample assignment topics on the usage of complex characters, metaphors, symbolism, themes, plot twists, scene structure, research, dialogue, chapter-titling and action. Also suits exam questions. (Click this dot point for samples, or contact the author HERE.)

Extensive teachers' notes on plotting, character development, creative writing activities, goalsetting, world creation, dialogue and problem solving to encourage students to take their own writing to the next level.

Book Template Kit... 30+ pages of index, intro, chapter discussions, author comments, images and conclusions... as a lasting memento of Anita's school visits for students to insert their stories and work samples and publish their own book. Free to class groups who've studied any of Anita's fiction titles and produced work as a result of participation in a group session with Anita. Or else price available, depending on numbers of copyright issues required.

Note: Kit also includes detailed how-to notes on creating great characters, scenes, titles and plots, which are provided along with inside info, hints
and tips about story creation and editing as discussed during the session
(or series of online sessions)... all of which is designed to be used and re-used by students from upper primary to highschool, university and beyond to assist in getting better marks, winning competitions and achieving publication for themselves.

Free online author-chats to primary/high schools who study this book as a class or as a sub-class group, depending on booking availablity, so please book ahead.

Note: easy2use chatroom is firewall friendly4schools thanks to
The Learning Place, State Library & Education Queensland.