Are the orangutans of Mukada falling sick because there are just too many of them? Something doesn't sound right about the park wardenÆs explanation, and eleven-and-a-half-year-old Romy discovers she has been given mysterious powers to work out why. An encounter with a prank-loving family of apes leads her to realize that she alone can help break a curse that has brought suffering to generations of orangutans.
Grant should never be given a cup and saucer or asked to perform surgery because he wobbles like a jelly. Fortunately for this British author of children's books, he can just about manage to get his fingers on the right place of a keyboard if given enough time.
Monkey Magic: The Curse of Mukada is Grant's first novel and highlights the destruction of the rainforests and the plight of the orangutan.
Born in an ancient time before mobile phones and color television, Grant got a thirst for travel as a child when his family moved from the U.K. to Australia for two years. He returned to go to school in England before graduating from Manchester University in 1988.
He has spent the past 15 years writing and reporting on television about primates (the human kind) running, jumping and kicking balls in his job as a sports journalist for an international news agency. From South London to North Korea, his work has taken him around the world, including to four football World Cups, and the Athens and Beijing Olympics.
Grant always wanted to write novels and finally got around to it after moving to Singapore, where he now lives with his wife and two daughters.
He is currently working on the sequel to Monkey Magic and putting the finishing touches to several other projects, including Space Buttons (a humorous novel about a brother and sister travelling the universe to save our environment), a book of amusing verses and a collection of fables.
