Her response to that moment held such significance, she wrote to me: Working her way through the new stack of titles, she picked up ‘The Wonder of Winsome’ and found herself, for the first time, seeing her name on the cover of a book. On this particular day, a staff member was assigned to the children’s book section and busily began the process.
One warm summer’s day earlier this year, when the streets of inner Melbourne remained empty and the doors of the magnificent state library were closed to the public, the staff continued to work with their ever-growing collection – receiving, cataloguing and shelving new books. I am fortunate to work regularly in schools and have children and teachers talk to me about the way they feel about the story - but there has been one, quite different response I will never forget -one outcome of writing this book I could never have predicted and one gift that Winsome quietly gave, simply because she was called Winsome. Ultimately, a writer hopes to connect with their readers in some way. These questions have led to some beautiful conversations about names and how writers create their characters and how the name helps bring the person alive in your mind and, hopefully, in your readers’ minds too. One of the first questions I hear is “Where did her name come from?” or ‘Why did you call her that?” It seems that the name itself provokes wondering – it’s a welcome, albeit unexpected, outcome of publishing the story almost a year ago. Since publishing the book last year I have had so many delightful conversations with children about it.
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