1.Paul Jennings is one of the most successful Australian authors and story tellers.
2. His children’s books have sold over three million copies in Australia alone and won dozens of awards.
3.Kids love Paul’s stories because they’re crazy and very hilarious.
Paul said
"If you can make kids laugh, tell me something that’s more useful than that."
But as a child, Paul was very unhappy.
Paul Arthur Jennings was born in England in 1943 the elder of two children. His family moved to australia when he was six.
Paul said
"That’s a very hard experience for a child, because you’ve got a different accent. I soon realised it’s not much fun being laughed at or told you talk funny."
From his early age Paul Jennings seemed happy on the outside but inside he felt very different.
and Paul said
"Anybody who knew me would have said I was wild, rude and naughty, you know, wandering the countryside on my bike and generally yahooing. But actually inside I didn’t feel like that at all, and when I look at the photos of myself as a boy, they were invariably this sad little boy looking out at the world in a rather confused way, and that’s the way I remember it."
Paul also felt sad because he was a failiar to his father.
"My father was an engineer and I used to have to help him in the garage working on his cars and building things. And I sued to hate it because I never seemed to be any good at it. I think there’s this thing with fathers that they expect their sons should be like them, or they want them to be."
So Paul would escape by reading books and dreamed of one day becoming a writer.
"I knew I was quite good at writing but I didn’t ever think I was good at school, and nobody ever told me I was good at writing and in fact anything to do with things like verbs and nouns and adjectives I hated, and I sort of had the wrong idea that you had to know all about that stuff to be a writer which you don’t."
When Paul was aged fifteen he wrote a story and sent it to the Women’s Weekly. When it was rejected Paul was mortified and decided he just wasn’t good enough and gave up.
"I wish now that I’d gone for it, that I’d had the belief in myself that I could do it."
Instead Paul’s father insisted he went to teacher’s college. Paul graduated when he was twenty years old and began teaching children with disabilities.
"I thought it would be a lovely thing to help kids who couldn’t read or had some sort of disability that was stopping them from learning.. and then I went to train as a speech therapist."
Paul worked for eleven years with children who had learning difficulties, then spent eight years lecturing in language and literature.
He married and raised four children but became a single parent when his marriage failed.
In 1984 his eleven year old son complained about the boring book he was reading and Paul decided he would write a story his son would love.
The following year, at the age of forty-two, Paul’s first book ‘Unreal’ was published.
"It just came out as a little paperback, and when I got that book I was so proud and I used to carry it around with me and every now and then I’d take it out and think I wrote that! And it was a pivotal moment in my life."
More books followed and Paul became a full-time author. He wrote books for kids who didn’t like reading. Books they wanted to read.
He wrote funny, interesting and disgusting stories with surprising endings. Kids loved them.
In 1990 ‘Round the Twist’, a television series was based on Paul’s stories. It became a top rating children’s program show in over forty countries around the world.
Today Paul is doing what he loves and is happy. He married again, loves classic cars, music and dancing and just like his books has found that everything worked out in the end.
"The thing is to find what you love you know, because once you’re doing the job that you love and you’re going to be happy doing it. You don’t have to be particularly smart, I’m not particularly smart. I don’t believe you have to be good at maths or language skills to find something incredibly good to do. You can be an actor or whatever it is that you’re into. You can find it and it can make you happy."
2. His children’s books have sold over three million copies in Australia alone and won dozens of awards.
3.Kids love Paul’s stories because they’re crazy and very hilarious.
Paul said
"If you can make kids laugh, tell me something that’s more useful than that."
But as a child, Paul was very unhappy.
Paul Arthur Jennings was born in England in 1943 the elder of two children. His family moved to australia when he was six.
Paul said
"That’s a very hard experience for a child, because you’ve got a different accent. I soon realised it’s not much fun being laughed at or told you talk funny."
From his early age Paul Jennings seemed happy on the outside but inside he felt very different.
and Paul said
"Anybody who knew me would have said I was wild, rude and naughty, you know, wandering the countryside on my bike and generally yahooing. But actually inside I didn’t feel like that at all, and when I look at the photos of myself as a boy, they were invariably this sad little boy looking out at the world in a rather confused way, and that’s the way I remember it."
Paul also felt sad because he was a failiar to his father.
"My father was an engineer and I used to have to help him in the garage working on his cars and building things. And I sued to hate it because I never seemed to be any good at it. I think there’s this thing with fathers that they expect their sons should be like them, or they want them to be."
So Paul would escape by reading books and dreamed of one day becoming a writer.
"I knew I was quite good at writing but I didn’t ever think I was good at school, and nobody ever told me I was good at writing and in fact anything to do with things like verbs and nouns and adjectives I hated, and I sort of had the wrong idea that you had to know all about that stuff to be a writer which you don’t."
When Paul was aged fifteen he wrote a story and sent it to the Women’s Weekly. When it was rejected Paul was mortified and decided he just wasn’t good enough and gave up.
"I wish now that I’d gone for it, that I’d had the belief in myself that I could do it."
Instead Paul’s father insisted he went to teacher’s college. Paul graduated when he was twenty years old and began teaching children with disabilities.
"I thought it would be a lovely thing to help kids who couldn’t read or had some sort of disability that was stopping them from learning.. and then I went to train as a speech therapist."
Paul worked for eleven years with children who had learning difficulties, then spent eight years lecturing in language and literature.
He married and raised four children but became a single parent when his marriage failed.
In 1984 his eleven year old son complained about the boring book he was reading and Paul decided he would write a story his son would love.
The following year, at the age of forty-two, Paul’s first book ‘Unreal’ was published.
"It just came out as a little paperback, and when I got that book I was so proud and I used to carry it around with me and every now and then I’d take it out and think I wrote that! And it was a pivotal moment in my life."
More books followed and Paul became a full-time author. He wrote books for kids who didn’t like reading. Books they wanted to read.
He wrote funny, interesting and disgusting stories with surprising endings. Kids loved them.
In 1990 ‘Round the Twist’, a television series was based on Paul’s stories. It became a top rating children’s program show in over forty countries around the world.
Today Paul is doing what he loves and is happy. He married again, loves classic cars, music and dancing and just like his books has found that everything worked out in the end.
"The thing is to find what you love you know, because once you’re doing the job that you love and you’re going to be happy doing it. You don’t have to be particularly smart, I’m not particularly smart. I don’t believe you have to be good at maths or language skills to find something incredibly good to do. You can be an actor or whatever it is that you’re into. You can find it and it can make you happy."