The Lamburger Emergency

The Lamburger Emergency (2002) Post 361

The Lamburger Emergency was published under one of my less-used pennames; Sara Chen. 'Sara' is a form of 'Sarah' which is the 'parent' name of my real first name, but I don't remember where I got Chen from... It was probably a stab in the dark because the company liked a bit of ethnic diversity in author names. 

Jaz and her brother Steve (It seems unlikely to me that I chose his name, but at this point I can't remember...) are staying with their great-grandparents while their parents have a 15th anniversary holiday. (Coincidentally, it is now 15 years since I wrote this book!) Mum gives Jaz a pale blue phone to use "only for emergencies..." with Uncle James's number preprogrammed into it. It's raining heavily and, in the gap between falls, Jaz and Steve take the pet lamb, Lamburger (the previous one was called Woolly-Mae which probably meant nothing to young readers, even then...) for a run. They put the lamb in the woodshed with a hay bed and then retreat inside. The rain continues, the river floods and at the eleventh hour they remember Lamburger... Soon, Jaz and Steve and the lamb are perched in the treehouse Uncle James made, cut off from the house. Is THIS the emergency Mum envisioned?

ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, manuscript assessor, editor, anthologist and reader. She runs http://www.affordablemanuscriptassessments.com and Prints Charming Books. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)

The goal for 2017 is to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you might find this fun. The books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and pictures, where they exist.