Herbie the pig dog’s adventures go nationwide in School Journal
Page one of Marie Langley’s story in School Journal Part 3 Number 1 2010.
A Golden Bay pig dog called Herbie is the star of a story in the latest School Journal, which goes out to all primary, contributing and some secondary schools in New Zealand.
Parapara writer Marie Langley has produced a lot of work for younger readers and she knew as soon as she heard Herbie’s story that it would work in the publication.
“Herbie belongs to Steve Thompson,” explains Marie. “He’d been out hunting on the Hill and Herbie had got lost, even though he had a tracking collar on. Steve kept going back to look for him and eventually discovered him on a ledge 15 metres down a tomo. He lowered some dog food down to Herbie and came back to town to enlist the help of rock climber Chris Butler. Between them they got Herbie out of the tomo after he’d been down there for six days. I heard Chris telling the story to my husband Martin in the Quiet Revolution bike shop and then a couple of days later Steve came in himself. I asked him if he’d mind me writing up the story for the School Journal and he told me to go right ahead. It’s an amazing story and I knew kids of all ages would love it.”
Marie originally wrote the story as a piece of fiction because she didn’t have access to all the facts. She heard back from Learning Media, the publishers of the School Journal quite quickly.
“They told me they wanted it done as non-fiction so I went back to Steve and asked him to write down all the facts,” says Marie. “He did a great job and even provided me with some photos to go with the writing.”
By then the process had taken about three months. The publishers took Marie’s story to a design school in Wellington and asked the students what visual components they would design to present the story effectively to School Journal readers. Vaughan Flanagan’s illustrations impressed the publishers the most and they accompany Where’s Herbie? in the Part 3 Journal that has quite recently arrived in all schools.
“I loved the local flavour of the story,” says Marie. “The idea that some kids would say, ‘I know that place’ or really identify with the pig-hunting aspect.”
The Part 3 journal in which Where’s Herbie? appears is intended to appeal to a range of readers in upper primary and intermediate schools. Marie is familiar with the requirements of writing for that audience because she used School Journal extensively when she was an English teacher, and because she has had work published there previously.
Neil Wilson
