Australian Teen Fiction Author: Jeni Mawter

The author of more than 18 books for young readers, Jeni Mawter is enthusiastic about encouraging kids of all ages to enjoy reading. With a Masters in Children’s Literature and a desire to develop a love of books and reading in children, she combines entertaining stories and relevant issues to offer children an opportunity to think about the situations and challenges they experience in their own lives.

Freewheelers Series: BMX Bikes, Friendships and Adventure

Commencing with Unleashed! (HarperCollins, 2006), Mawter introduced 10 – 14 year old readers to the Freewheelers, a culturally diverse group of tweens united by their common love of BMX bike riding. The Freewheelers stories are a combination of adventure and mystery that appeal to both male and female readers. While the action of the adventures and challenges faced by the Freewheelers is enough to provide an entertaining read, there is much more to be gained from these well-crafted stories.

Freewheelers #2: Launched! (HarperCollins, 2007) focuses on Bryce, a former street-kid and examines the value of friendship and loyalty. Freewheelers #3: Extreme! (HarperCollins, 2008) deals with the issue of identity theft, both in a technological sense through the misuse of email and in a more complex cultural sense as Japanese-born Mio struggles to find an acceptable balance between the cultures of her childhood and her new home.

Books for Reluctant Readers

Mawter’s first series, the ‘So’ Series including So Gross (HarperCollins, 2001) and So Feral (HarperCollins, 2002), offered the types of humorous, fun stories that are particularly appealing to young male readers.

Mawter believes that ‘humour is a large part of how they communicate. It is incredibly important to the fabric of the male’. In keeping with this belief, the ‘So’ series comprises a collection of short humorous stories. As with writers such as Paul Jennings and Andy Griffiths, Mawter’s stories include mention of a variety of smells, embarrassing accidents and practical jokes that comprise the style of slapstick humour that children find entertaining.

To consider the ‘So’ series as merely fun stories with no substance is to take a far too superficial view of their worth. While they do contain the rather gross imagery that seems particularly attractive to young boys, they are also well written and it is possible to take away messages about friendships, bullying, family and life in general. Mawter is enthusiastic about ‘using humour as a framework to explore issues’.

A Starting Point for Family Discussions

Mawter believes that books are a ‘bridge in communication between parents and children’. Reading stories containing topics and situations that are relevant to children today offers opportunities for non-confrontational discussions about the issues that many children are dealing with on a day to day basis in their schools and peer groups.

Having developed a habit of regular one on one reading time with her own children, Mawter believes that sharing books and stories provides valuable opportunities for parents to connect with their children and encourage an atmosphere where they can encourage children to explore their own response to the situations that arise in the stories.

Future Plans for Jeni Mawter

Following the recent release of Extreme!, Mawter hopes to continue with Freewheelers series, offering each member of the group an opportunity to share their story and develop their distinctive voice. She is also continuing to compile research for a possible future project for a slightly older young adult novel.

As she continues on her own interesting journey as a writer, Jeni Mawter hopes to inspire the next generation of writers to step forward and share their own stories. Through her books, articles on writing for young readers and the creative writing classes she teaches at Macquarie University, she is well on the way to achieving this aspiration.

Jeni Mawter

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