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When Archie Adam came home and asked for a dirt bike, his mother said “we can’t make money come out of thin air”.
So 7-year-old Archie decided he would write a book to raise the money.
His book, Sue the Hen Goes to Town, was soon completed, his mother doing some edits and the illustrations, and 100 copies were printed.
They have all but sold out, and Archie has his dirt bike: a Honda CRF110.
The story follows Sue the hen who, after a day of looking for bugs and exploring, chooses to take a quick nap under the hood of a van.
However, Sue is soon thrown into unfamiliar territory when the van takes off to deliver milk to a dairy factory.
The book is based on a true story.
In real life, “Sue” was returned to the Adam family’s dairy and poultry farm in a box upon being discovered after hitching a ride to Anchor Milk in South Dunedin.
The Anchor crew rounded up Sue to put her in a box for the journey home.
“It was so funny,” Archie said.
Archie’s mother, Ellie Adam, said a self-published author had spoken to Archie’s class at school and he came home saying he would love to try to write a book.
The pair came up with a name and drew some illustrations.
“It just kind of escalated from there and we went through the motions of producing a book.”
It was around the same time Archie came home asking for a new dirt bike.
The two ideas merged and they decided to raise the money through writing a book.
“It’s been quite a fun process to do with Archie . . . he’s never really been much into doing his homework and all that, so it’s been quite nice to be able to sit down with him and focus on something.”
She was quite surprised how quickly the initial 100 copies sold out, and she might have to order another 100 if the demand was there.
Archie got the bike a couple of weeks ago, and there had not been a day he had not been out riding it.