Katarina Lee is a primary school teacher now semi-retired, who also writes children's books and teen novels.
Her children's book, ‘Omri’, is an environmental-themed book about an octopus enduring intrusion into his realm at Tiritiri Matangi Island Reserve, after two fishing buddies unwittingly destroy Omri’s castle of shells.
The book has taken on a life of its own, with a life-size Omri accompanying Katarina on a book tour, visiting schools in Auckland and Northland. School visits were interspersed with beach and roadside rubbish clean-ups, and shared ways kids could care for the environment. Omri’s songs with messages of hope have also been popular, as have Katarina’s free mini writing workshops. You can find a copy of Omri in most school and regional libraries.
Katarina has also published a teen novel ‘Rise of the Boy King’, a story of two twelve-year-old boys who disappear from a maize field near their homes in the native bush of coastal Coromandel. The second book in the ‘Lost in Time’ series; ‘War of the Gods’, has been edited and will be published soon.
