James Russell

A much-acclaimed children’s book author from Auckland, New Zealand, James has created a wonderful world of adventures that can be experienced through eight books so far.

Three are his The Dragon Brothers series of picture books and five are The Dragon Defenders series of junior novels. More amazing adventures are on the way!

When asked why he writes for children, James says: “I love the way children think. I love their thirst for adventure and their wonderful imaginations. I like to challenge myself to write books that fire up that imagination and encourage kids to keep on creating worlds of their own English was my lowest mark at high school, so a writing certainly career wasn’t on the cards back then. But when I was travelling in Ireland after attending university, I met the editor of a newspaper and I asked if I could write for him. For some reason he said yes, which kicked off twelve years as a journalist. After twelve years you figure out how to tell a good story.”