Lawyer Ron Desiatnik has given himself a break from editing legal textbooks that are referenced in courts around Australia with his first foray into fiction writing, something much lighter, a children’s story, DARE TO WIN.
It wouldn’t be a boy’s adventure story if the narrative didn’t start in a cave. Tom and Ken are young, energetic kids, one ten and the other nine, who are determined to join the school’s social club. To become members of the club, the club’s committee has determined that they have to complete a difficult dare.
Within a few kilometres of the school, there is a low-lying range of hills. In the middle of these hills there is a huge cavern with tunnels running everyone within it. Kids are usually warned off playing within the caves.
The Committee’s dare is for the two young boys to enter the caves, take 50 steps inside one of the tunnels, and then reappear with something from inside. Committee members are on site to ensure that the dare is properly carried out.
One bright Saturday morning the two boys venture in. As scary as it was, the boys were going ok, had completed their fifty steps and were starting to head back when Tom, breaking his fall, leaned against a rock. The huge rock started to grow bigger and then four spider like legs appeared from nowhere and this ‘thing’ begins to move towards him.
It is then that their great adventure truly begins. Committee member Mark Bradley, two grades higher than the boys in school, can’t quite believe his eyes when from his vantage point, at the cave’s entrance, he sees his two friends being grabbed by a hairy stone monster and, with a flash of lightning and some ominous sound effects, they are whisked off into the ether.
Yes, Desiatnik charts quite a journey for his two young heroes, including a trip to a strange new planet called Merdia.
The writer originally wrote DARE TO WIN as bedtime reading for his two grandchildren, Alex and Jamie. In his preface, he tells how he read them a new chapter each week and was so pleased with their response that he was then inspired to seek a wider audience and look for a publisher.
Zeus Publications were delighted to accept his manuscript and DARE TO WIN was first published in late 2012. This charming and entertaining boys’ adventure story, with plenty of fantasy thrown in the mix, is available at all leading bookstores and online at Amazon.com- Zeus-publications.com.