I’ve just sent off the final pages for my new book in the Choose Your Own Ever After series – The Call of the Wild. Yahoo! I can’t wait to see the finished product.
In this story, nature-loving Phoebe has to choose between helping at a save-the-organutan movie night, and going to a super-cool party with besties. Just like the other stories in the Choose Your Own Ever After series, there’s loads of girlfriend fun, boy trouble, embarrassing family antics and lots of decisions to be made! The pick-a-path story lets you decide how the story goes. And if you don’t like where you end up, you can always go back and start all over again!
The Call of the Wild was inspired by an orphaned orangutan that I encountered on holidays in Borneo many years ago. This cheeky chappy stole my friend’s scarf, then helped himself to a wad of cash from her money belt and ate it! As I was trying to leave the forest he grabbed my hand and wouldn’t let me go. I thought I might be spending the night in the jungle with him.
Sadly, some experts predict that orangutans could be extinct in the wild in less than ten years unless steps are take to prevent their habitat being destroyed. (Full story: National Geographic)
Today, you only find orangutans on the Indonesian and Malaysian islands of Sumatra and Borneo. Nobody knows exactly how many orangutans are left in the wild, but the UN’s latest estimate is around 50,000 (2007). And this number is decreasing rapidly.
Thousands of orangutans are lost each year as their rainforest habitat is destroyed by logging, forest fires, plantations and mining. This could lead to the extinction of one of the world’s four species of great apes – one of our most intelligent and peaceful relatives. (Save-the-orangutan.org)
The Call of the Wild comes out in August and is published by Hardie Grant Egmont.
Julie Fison 