OK, I'll admit it now. When I mentioned in the last G'day that I was off to Minneapolis in the US to see a stage musical version of my book Two Weeks With The Queen, I sounded a bit cheerier than I actually felt. The truth is I was very nervous, partly because I've never liked musicals much, and partly because whenever I thought of Minneapolis I thought of a town just up the road from there called Fargo, a town that gave its name to a very bloodthirsty crime movie in which several people got murdered. I couldn't remember if any of them were Australian children's authors who'd had a book adapted into a stage musical down the road in Minneapolis, but I was worried.

Well, I needn't have been. I was in Minneapolis for two days and my body parts were completely safe at all times, except for my ears which were nearly removed by the coldest wind I've ever known outside the meat-chilling zone in our fridge. (Minneapolis gets so cold that all the buildings in the city centre are connected by above-ground tunnels. You can walk across the entire town without going into the outside air.)

Even better than not being chopped up with a chainsaw was being at the Illusion Theatre for the opening night of Two Weeks With The Queen The Musical. It's a wonderful show, and I say that as someone who'd never enjoyed a musical in his life except for The Muppet Movie. I'd never realised before how songs can help an audience connect with the emotions in a story. OK, I'm a bit one-eyed about this particular story, but I still think the Illusion Theatre team have done a great job and I dearly hope the show gets to travel to other places. Broadway and London would be nice, but Australia would be even better.

My deepest thanks to Robert Hartmann (Music and Lyrics), Mary Morris (Script and Lyrics), Peter Rothstein (Director), Michael Robins and Bonnie Morris (Producers) and the wonderful cast and production team for re-telling my story with such talent and inspiration. They've made me a fan of stage musicals. Well, this one anyway.

I got back to Australia and walked straight into more personal excitement. The first copies of my new book Self-Helpless were back from the printer and on their way to the shops. I won't say much about Self-Helpless here because if you click on the title you can read bits of it for yourself. It's a collection of pieces I wrote over the last six or so years for the  Good Weekend magazine, with some extra bits added. If you cut out, ironed and filed all my columns, don't bother buying the book. If you're not my mum, though, you may have missed some of them and Self-Helpless might just be for you.

To top it all off, there was also a wonderful e-mail waiting for me when I got back. A uni student named Amy Wilson who's studying to be a teacher wrote to tell me that she's reading Misery Guts to her very first primary class. She also mentioned that she read Misery Guts when she was a school kid herself. I know this should make me feel very old and have me anxiously checking in the mirror for wrinkles on my typing fingers, but for some strange reason it makes me feel very happy. I've been going round for the last few days humming. I think they might be songs from Two Weeks With The Queen The Musical.

So good on you Amy and g'day to class 3/4 C. And to everyone else, happy reading and oo-roo till next time.

5 May 2000