ABOUT THE AUTHOR
by
Sam Penant, 2024
MICHAEL LAWRENCE has published around fifty books, most of which were for children of various ages. His most popular books were the ones about three schoolfriends: Jiggy McCue, Angie Mint and Pete Garrett, the self-styled Three Musketeers of Ranting Lane School who, whenever things get a bit tricky (far too often for their liking), cry 'One for all and all for lunch!', then try and handle whatever mad stuff is thrown at them.
In writing about Jiggy, Angie and Pete, Michael recalled many of his own experiences at their age and from the safe distance of adulthood found humour in situations that might not have been funny at the time, adding a measure of craziness and lunacy while he was at it. Among other things, he wrote about detentions and homework and classroom disasters, plus the attitudes and occasional rages of some of his teachers, using several of those teachers' real names.
While never short of ideas for Jiggy stories, there were other things Michael wanted to do as well, and with a small sigh he ended the series with the sixteenth adventure ('Murder & Chips') in order to get on with them. However, some years later, having finished those 'other things' (four adult novels, a personal memoir, a book of poems written during the pandemic, and a host of visual art projects), he finds that people he's never met are getting in touch to talk and wax lyrical about the Jiggy books, which they read when they were younger and in some cases - as teachers themselves today - find in their school libraries being enjoyed by their own pupils. Such is these new friends' fondness for the books that Michael has been persuaded to go through the entire series, updating the stories where necessary to bring them firmly into the mid-Twenty-Twenties. Each of these special editions will contain a few words from Michael about how they came to be written. This website is devoted to those books, that series.
While set in England, the original Jiggys were published in a number of other countries (in translation where necessary) including Italy, China, Serbia, France, Thailand, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, Mexico, the USA, Australia and New Zealand. There were even editions in Welsh, which the author (to his shame, for he loves Wales and once lived there) can make little sense of.
WORDYBUG SPECIAL EDITIONS
are personally produced by
Michael Lawrence,
who invites you to email him
with any queries, requests,
or suggestions at:
