Crac the Troll raised his not-so-ugly head again at Jennings Public School on Monday, August 21 when author Suzanne Springborg visited the school for a special reading of The Waterhole.

The Waterhole has been many years in the creation, born of Suzanne’s desire to encourage a love of reading in her son James. The adventures of the water sprites and witches and trolls take place around the waterhole of the title. As magical as the setting may seem, it was inspired by the area around Wallangarra and Jennings.

Suzanne’s son James and his matse used to play around Beehive Dam behind Wallangarra (the ‘waterhole’), which backs onto Girraween National Park (the ‘rainforest’). The territory of the ‘outside pixies’ of the story line is actually around the Jennings army camp, and the mines are the now-disused mines in Jennings.

One of James’ mates was his cousin Jordyn, and they’ve become the water sprites Jase and Jord in the story along with Brandy and Dandy, two other mates who may be surprised to find they’ve been immortalised in fiction.

Jordyn’s mother Sheree Springborg is Miss Sherry in the story, a favourite with a number of the students at Jennings. The book is being read to the students progressively and discovering they know some of the characters and places in the book is bringing the story alive to them.

For an interactive experience Suzanne and Sheree (or should that be ‘Miss Sherry’?) set up a treasure hunt in the school library, depicting places on the map which illustrates where the story takes place. The students are already well into the story line, know the characters and have their favourites, and were familiar with the items they were looking for.

At the end of the hunt was a treasure chest filled with gold coins (of the chocolate variety), so all-in-all it was a very successful afternoon of bringing story-telling alive. The Waterhole is the first in a series of four books with more familiar characters, including the author herself, to be woven into the story.