Author Linda Hansen writes about real kids in real adventures; about teenagers finding their true strengths as they respond to issues like threatened environments, bullying in schools, over-ambitious parents, consumerist cultures, the hidden faces of war and slavery. They’re fast-paced stories for adolescents already involved in change, questioning social and cultural controls as they move from childhood.

These young people quickly discover how human potential can be influenced by violence – or by humane example – and they make their choices as they confront issues they can’t ignore.

There’s friendship, romance, audacity, disguise and quite bit of mischief as these young protagonists from different cultures take up challenges. Being fact-based, all books include sources for further reading. Linda took up YA writing after Socks, her story on homelessness, won the Jack Lasenby Senior Award for children’s writing  in 2012.

Linda lives by the sea north of Wellington and has worked as a writer most of her life. For eight years she researched and wrote for politicians as a parliamentary researcher. For15, she taught business writing and communication in Massey and other New Zealand universities. She has a VUW Master of Communications and is a qualified Adult Literacy Educator.

As a storyteller, she takes her dramatic narrative ‘Peacemakers in these Islands – from Rēkohu and Parihaka to the Nuclear Ban Treaty and beyond’ into schools and elsewhere.