Property | Bay Post-Moruya Examiner

Children's author and western district farmer Tracey Kruger was always interested in writing, but never expected to sell more than 12,000 books to readers nationwide when she started publishing a decade ago. The Croxton East sheep, cropping and cattle farmer recently released her 11th book, The Farmer Twins Summer, at Sheepvention in Hamilton and said the response in recent weeks was "overwhelming". "Due to demand from schools, libraries and bookshops, they wanted junior novels that would get children, especially farm children, moving from picture books onto chapter books," Mrs Kruger said. "That's what these books do. "There was a real hole in the market and there hasn't been a children's farming series since the Billabong books that were written 100 years ago." The third novel in the self-published Farmer Twins series focuses on the journey of children, Charlie and Daisy, and the experiences they have during their summer break on the farm. It includes adventures on cropping during harvest, Christmas, yabbying and the excitement during the summer school holidays. The first novel in the series explored how the siblings sought to earn enough pocket money to purchase their first motorbike and the jobs they undertook, while the second explored their adventures during a visit from their cousins. In the last few weeks, Mrs Kruger has spoken in front of several-hundred students across Victoria and said she was rapt with the reaction from young readers. "The responses have been mind-blowing, it has been really beautiful," she said. The avid photographer and writer published her first book, Shearing in Victoria's Western District, in 2011 - which features 160 working wool sheds - and said the response from her initial book caught her by surprise. "I was told by so many people, even though it was a book that was designed for adults, boys aged seven to 12 really enjoyed it because it interested them," she said. "There's a lot of women's literature about farm life and farm romances, but there's really nothing based at that developing reader age that farm kids can relate to." Outside of writing, Mrs Kruger classifies herself as the "farm assistant" to her husband Peter and son Jack who together run the mixed-farming enterprise 20 kilometres east of Hamilton. "I do a lot of writing in the middle of the night and I try to fit the farm jobs in during the daytime," she said. "I certainly don't run it myself, I do my share with the sheep, but my husband and son do the majority of the cropping and major work." Mrs Kruger said the book was illustrated by Hamilton local Alyshia McInnes and produced in an easy-to-read format. "The books have been illustrated locally, printed at our local Ivory Print in Hamilton and I'm really proud of the fact that regardless of whether I make any money out of them or not, these books are supporting my local area and encouraging young people to read," she said. "I'm doing a huge amount of school visits, and I don't think just because you're a small, rural school that you should miss out on things like book and author talks."

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