The Stroogle

The Stroogle is a modern twist to the classic ugly duckling story. The simple rhyming text leads the reader through an adventure of rejection, misunderstanding and sadness to friendship, courage and acceptance.

Unlike the traditional story where the swan grows beautiful and is subsequently accepted, the Stroogle is befriended by a rather drab looking mouse. He then has the courage to show his 'true colours' when he leads the mouse on a daring rescue of the garden gnomes from the much larger hungry fox.

The Stroogle was written and illustrated by Dr Cameron Stelzer during the year he spent working at the Natural History Museum in London (2002-03). He was inspired by the many weird and wonderful creatures the museum held in its collection.

The character evolved in Cameron's pocket sketch book and everything around him became part of the story. Street buskers became garden gnomes and even stuffed foxes and mice from the museum's collection found their way into the story. A well-timed visit to the Royal Botanical Gardens provided Cameron with all the garden and farmyard scenes for the book, and it was during a visit to Germany that he stumbled upon the perfect name.

"I discovered a small shop near the famous Hofbrauhaus in Munich which sold only strudel: apple, raspberry, rhubarb, even spinach and vegetable - it had everything! Since my little character has an enormous appetite I wondered what would be an exciting name that sounds like strudel. I discovered the word strudel also translates to 'whirlwind' or 'eddy' which are appropriate descriptions for such an adventurous little round character. I played around with the letters and came up with 'Stroogle'."

Cameron worked on the final pictures for the book for six months and on returning to Australia the text was rewritten into its rhyming form.

This Stroogle book has a free activity kit of fun educational activities designed to use in the classroom.

About the Author

Cameron was born in Hobart in 1977. He attended school in Adelaide before his family moved to Bundaberg, QLD. In primary school, Cameron wrote many short stories for the local newspaper (after his poor spelling was corrected by his mother). He still has a shoe box of gold certificates for his efforts. In high school Cameron discovered (with his first pair of glasses) that he had a passion for art. Cameron stresses the word passion rather than the word talent here, as hard work and reasonable vision go a long way!

After academic scholarships and seven straight years of Art College in Brisbane, Cameron took his new Dr title and went to live in London for a much needed gap year. Over-qualified as a 24 year old, he stumbled into a job at the Natural History Museum. It was here that he rekindled his love for children's literature and began writing stories inspired by the animals in the museum.

When Cameron returned to Australia, he completed a graduate diploma in education and released the first instalment in his The Stroogle series of picture books. Eight years later, the sixth book in the series was published and followed on from three additional how-to-draw books. In 2012 The Stroogle series won a silver medal in the PICA print awards and Cameron received an RADF grant to create the first book in his new Pie Rat series. The Pie Rat series have gone on to win a number of books awards internationally.