Last week, our Year 6 students enjoyed a morning with Australian youth adventure story author, Anna Ciddor. Her presentation topic was ‘Where do I get my ideas?’ 

The visit coincides with the students’ current work in class building their narrative writing skills and incorporating them into adventure stories. 

Ms Ciddor shared with students her inspiration for new stories from areas of interest, passions, and research into her subjects.  

Three of our Year 6 students provide their reflections on the visit below. 

“Anna Ciddor came to talk about her new book, A Message Through Time, being launched in April. She also spoke about her recent book The Boy Who Stepped Through Time. Both books are based on a boy who goes through time. A boy who stepped through time is based on her nephew and his family. 

“During the visit we learnt that Anna Ciddor creates her books in an interesting way. She writes and drafts her first chapter then she goes to a school and reads it out. Some children may suggest a chapter title or the whole book. In fact, she rewrote her whole book because a student said that the first chapter reminded them of a book they had read about time travel. So, then she changed the book to a time change book. The experience was incredibly fun.” Saya Stokes  

“Anna Ciddor came to our School and told us about her book. She told us how and where she got her ideas. She told us about her new book and a bit about the characters. Anna Ciddor also showed us how long it took to make the book. She told us how she used real people and made characters based on her nephew and other people. She showed us her drafts that she drew and how many there were.”  Alicia Lai  

“Anna Ciddor wrote a book called, A Boy Who Stepped Through Time. This book is about a boy who goes back in time to Roman times. Anna Ciddor explained to us that she gets some of her inspiration from the children that she sees when she is talking about her books. She also gets her inspiration from her family members or people around her. Anna Ciddor gets her sister to research Roman times so she can add that into the book, she also illustrates her books. She did 30 drafts on a single picture!” Clementine Abbott