Anh Do is busy: he’s got about 50 books to write and an entire universe to create, using Wolf Girl and many of his children’s book characters.
Over the next three years, Do has another 50 books planned. He’s also adapting several into a television series, working with a team of editors, illustrators, writers and animators to do so.will land in October, about a little girl whose mother has died, and her dog, JJ. During a meteor storm, some “alien goop” falls on the dog and turns him into the smartest creature on earth: he can talk, solve maths problems and speak 12 languages.
Having survived the boat trip, complete with pirates and endless days at sea, and then several months in a refugee camp, the family made it safely to Australia and settled in Sydney. Do’s father left when Anh was 13 – they wouldn’t meet again for nearly a decade. His mother raised three children solo, working in sweatshops where she made about $7 an hour. Even so, it was a happy childhood.
As a kid, he was a huge fan of the “Choose your own adventure” books. “I used to read every single scenario, and there were times when I’d finish the book and I’d then try to think of new endings, to come up with even more dramatic endings and plot twists.” His books now regularly top the most borrowed books list of kids junior fiction in libraries around the country. “That made me tear up a bit, it brings me so much joy that kids like reading the books.”When I ask about his mum, he gets emotional. “She’s amazing – her opinion means the world to me,” he says. Later he tells me it was partially because of her that he studied law. “You see your mum struggle and you want to help.
With wife Suzanne, he has four children, aged 18, 16, 13 and eight. They are his first readers – and his harshest critics. “They’ve been like the Anh Do books market research department. I probably owe them hundreds of thousands in income.”