Untwisted

Coincidentally, not long before I spotted Paul Jenning's Untwisted: The Story of My Life on the Allen & Unwin shelves (wow, I really did score, didn't I), it was recommended by my friend Kirsty Murray. It's a fabulous read, a candid, funny and often moving account of Jennings' background and career.

Paul Jennings didn't start writing for children until he was forty years old. Before then, he had an extraordinary career as a teacher and education lecturer, often taking on students with physical or mental difficulties, and teaching youth offenders at what was then called Turana. With his quirky, hilarious short stories and particularly after the huge success of the ABC kids' show, Round the Twist, Jennings found himself rich and famous, and able to indulge himself by buying lots of vintage cars and fairytale cottages in the mountains. However, he is equally frank about his own struggles with mental health and the toll that his ups and downs took on his relationships.

Untwisted is compulsively readable. Jennings is a master craftsman of the art of the plot twist, foreshadowing and the clever set-up, and this makes the story of his own life a real page-turner. I must admit that his stories never had a lot of appeal for me, but my kids loved them, and Round the Twist is of course a classic. I now have a fresh respect and admiration for this national treasure of Australian children's literature.