IT was a case of life imitating art for Hamilton Hill author Meg McKinlay when her children’s novel The Big Dig hit the shelf last month.
The book, aimed at readers between the ages of eight and 12, tells the story of three boys who decide to dig their own pool in their back yard when the local recreation centre closes down.
McKinlay said she wrote most of the manuscript at the City of Melville’s Civic Square Library and was quite surprised to see a similar tale unfold in the local area when the pool facilities at the Leeming Recreation Centre closed down.
“It was a bit spooky seeing what I was writing start to materialise so close to home,” she said.
The book, which hit the shelves on July 1, is the second in Walker Books’ Lightning Strikes series that features the hapless trio of Nathan, Ronnie and Weasel.
McKinlay said the idea for the book came from an ambitious but doomed childhood attempt to dig a pool in her own back yard with her brothers.