TO AND FRO

Sam tries to understand what it means to be black in this funny Australian story about identity, family and friendship.

Most kids meet their parents when they're born. All they need to do to impress them is poop, sleep and make goo-goo ga-ga sounds. But I'm twelve. None of that is going to impress my father. Sam thinks he's a weird-looking white kid with an afro. He lives with his white mum (annoying but not smelly) and brown dog Trevor (smelly but not annoying). He's never met his father. He just knows that his father is black. But a surprise visit has Sam questioning who he really is. Is he a white kid with a black dad? Or a black kid with white skin? Or half-black and half-white? Not only does Sam want to know these answers, he has to know them to finish his annoying homework and perform in the school concert. But how can he make his outside match his insides if he doesn't know who he is? A delightfully funny story about family and identity, and what it means to be truly Sam. Anton Clifford-Motopi enjoys writing stories that make children laugh. His stories explore themes of self-identity, family relationships and friendship, drawing from his experiences of being mixed race, growing up in a large adoptive family and raising four children. Anton first became interested in writing for children while teaching Health & Physical Education and English at a high school in Mount Isa, but it would be many years before he put pencil to paper. That day arrived when he was shopping for a book to buy his daughter for her birthday. Browsing through children's books, he decided it was time he followed his heart. Over the next decade, Anton wrote three children's books while completing postgraduate studies in public health, working as a university lecturer and raising four children phew! Alas, none of these books were published, but they developed Anton's love for storytelling and were important steps to him becoming a published children's author. At the moment, Anton's other job is a health researcher at a university. The job involves a lot of thinking, reading and writing, but his passion is writing funny and thought-provoking stories for children. To and Fro is his debut novel. www.antoncliffordmotopi.com