Leaving Jetty Road (18 page)

Acknowledgments

Writing this book would not have been possible without the assistance of a Varuna Award for Manuscript Development. It would have been equally impossible without the incredibly warm and enthusiastic support of Vanessa Radnidge, Lisa Berryman, and Sam Rich at HarperCollins in Australia. Thanks are also due to Kim Swivel, who did the final copyedit, and to my hardworking agent, Barbara Mobbs.

Further thanks go to my American editing and publishing team at Knopf Books for Young Readers, and in particular to Erin Clarke, for her hard work and warm, friendly transatlantic e-mails. One day maybe we’ll meet in person, Erin!

Thank you, too, to my parents (for their incorrigible pride in me, and for being such amazing, inveterate, and underpaid publicists for
Leaving Jetty Road
), to my sister, Sarah (for her love, her unswervingly generous friendship, and—of course!—the Bollinger), and to all those enthusiastic, foolhardy friends of mine who agreed to read various drafts of this book along the way.

My final thanks go to my readers (adults and young adults alike), as well as to various bookshop owners, school librarians, and schoolteachers. The continuing level of their warmth and encouragement humbles me. I always knew that I would enjoy the writing process itself, but they have helped me to enjoy the aftermath of the writing process, and I can’t say how grateful I am.

Rebecca Burton has lived within walking distance of various South Australian beaches for much of her adult life. Over the years, she has dabbled in vegetarianism, overseas travel, and full-time employment, but she is now happily settled in a life made up partly of work and partly of writing. She lives with her partner, Wayne, and their two dogs. In her spare time, she loves baking cakes, drinking endless cups of tea, growing Trees for Life, and (of course) eating broccoli.

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Published by Laurel-Leaf
an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
a division of Random House, Inc.
New York

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2006 by Rebecca Burton
All rights reserved.

Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers, New York, in 2006. This edition published by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers.

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RL: 5.8
March 2008

eISBN: 978-0-375-84660-1

v3.0