Over the past few months I've been reminded that research is one of the most fascinating parts of an author's job, and also one of the most dangerous.

Fascinating because research takes you places you haven't been before. I've had some eye-opening research trips in my career. Gift Of The Gab, for example, took me to a war museum, an apple farm and France. Toad Rage took me to some very interesting swamps in North Queensland. Two Weeks With The Queen caused me to spend a lot of time round the back of Buckingham Palace, staring up at the spikes on their garden wall and attracting a lot of attention from the security cameras.

Most of the research I do, though, involves libraries and websites rather than travel agents. While I was researching Toad Away, I was very tempted to go to the Amazon rainforest in Brazil to experience for myself the adventures Limpy, Goliath and Charm would be having there. Then I read about the various tiny jungle organisms that burrow into your skin and live inside your brain, and the effect they have on both your writing style and your TV viewing habits. I cancelled the trip and spent the money on books instead.

I had similarly foolish travel urges while I was researching Boy Overboard. The first part of the story takes place in Afghanistan, and I was all set to go there until my family pointed out a couple of things. (1) Afghanistan is one of the most dangerous places in the world, with warlords, not much food and millions of unexploded landmines. (2) I didn't actually hear the second thing because I was on the phone to the travel agent cancelling the trip.

The great thing about libraries and the internet is that even cowards can go on life-changing research journeys. As well as the Amazon and Afghanistan, I've visited the Prime Minister's office in Parliament House (Girl Underground), the bottom of a lake (Water Wings), a contraceptive trade show (Bumface) and the inside of a human intestine (Worm Story) – all without leaving my desk.

I've never had a research journey as affecting and life-changing, though, as the one I've been on for the last few months. My next book is about some children in Poland in World War Two. In particular a Jewish boy discovering the terrible truth about the Nazis' treatment of the Jewish people. Many of the things I've read in the last few months I'll never forget. Part of me wants to just keep reading, to not ignore a single voice from that awful time.

That's the dangerous part of the research journey, when you get so deeply involved you don't want to stop. But I have to because I've got a story to write. A story about one kid's almost indestructible imagination. A story about how humour can find its way into the darkest places. A story about stories and how we use them to help each other.

I'd better get started.

Until next time, oo-roo and happy reading (even if it's about grim stuff),

23 January 2005