The second volume of a trilogy by Morris Gleitzman, Then, is about to be published and the author is interviewed by Jane Barry for "The Courier-Mail".
"I've always been lucky. I found out early what I was meant to do and it is never a chore," he says. Initially a screenwriter for television, Gleitzman evolved into writing for children more than 20 years ago and hasn't looked back. He says he became conscious a few years ago of needing to "write a book about two fictitious children who were representative of Jewish kids who died in the second world war". "I wanted to record what was the reality for so many of them at that time," he says. Beginning his trilogy with the publication of Once in 2005 and most recently Then, the third and final book Now is planned, though is currently on hold while the author hatches another Cane Toad saga from its larvae. Then and its counterparts are stories, he says, "that are primarily about friendship, which can transcend death and the situations people find themselves in".
