Growing up, author Tristan Bancks was obsessed with horror. When he was 12, he jumped from reading Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox to Stephen King’s Pet Sematary and The Shining . Bancks’ novel Scar Town has been named the 2024 Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year for younger readers.
Author Tristan Bancks in Sydney. Credit: Louise Kennerley Scar Town is about a town sunk beneath a lake that reemerges during a drought. When exploring the surreal town, three local kids venture inside one of the houses, where they find a stash of money and human bones.
“It’s sort of the younger sibling of horror – more of a thriller that deals with ideas like mortality,” Bancks says. “I love writing the kinds of books I probably should have been reading [as a child] for kids now. Still with these big ideas, but [written] in an age-appropriate way, they’re not explicit,” he says, adding that children of different ages will take away different things from his books.
Bancks started his career as an actor on Home and Away, where he played Tug O’Neale. He then wrote his own segments for TV, then for teen magazines, and later scripts for short films. “Writing at first came out of necessity, and then I started writing books,” he says.
“It’s almost like writing chose me instead of my choosing it.” One of the former actor’s favourite books growing up was Paul Jennings ’ Unreal . Grace Notes by Karen Comer is written in verse style.
“They were essent.