This fifteenth collection of jaw-dropping stories in the bestselling Selby series will give you laughs and thrills with a sackful of sagas and gags to keep you guffawing long after the last Christmas cracker goes pop!

For the last twenty-two years, one character has stood out (on all four legs) above all others in Australian children’s fiction: Selby, ‘the only talking dog in Australia and, perhaps, the world.’ Selby Santa marks this loveable pooch’s fifteenth story collection, bringing the total to date to 197 action-packed, hilarious stories plus poems and plays, not including Selby’s Joke Book, Selby’s Side-Splitting Joke Book and Selby’s Selection.

In Selby Santa, Selby is off on another series of electrifying adventures! Firstly there’s Selby’s hair-raising adventure in Dr Trifle’s Super Santa Sleigh Simulator, then a thrilling spy story, not to mention a terrifying tale with Selby caught in the grips of a huge, hungry python, and there’s even a great Gary Gaggs play for you to act out for your family and friends! And that’s not all…

Twenty years ago, an unknown author, Duncan Ball, answered the phone and was stunned to learn that the caller was none other than a dog called Selby — a dog from an Australian country town who had taught himself to talk. Selby wanted someone to write down all his amazing adventures — from walking in space, travelling through time, falling in love, being trapped in a parallel universe, to risking death at every turn.

Duncan Ball is one of Australia’s most popular children’s authors, well known for his Selby and Emily Eyefinger series. His books have won many children’s choice awards. In 2004, Duncan and fellow author Paul Jennings were voted the first-ever ‘Legends’ by KOALA (the Kids’ Own Australian Literature Awards). Duncan was also the only children’s author included in the Commonwealth Government’s 2004 Books Alive! Program. He has been all over Australia talking to kids about Selby and there is hardly a school he hasn’t visited! Duncan is a full-time writer and lives in Sydney.

Duncan's also an amazing guy to talk to, and in this interview we ranged over topics as wide as children's fiction, the need to children to read, books that influence lives and just how bad a novelist Dan Brown is... and how good an essayist Grahame Greene was!

This is a fantastic interview, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!