No, not that Georgia. Not Ray Charles’ Georgia.
I mean Eastern European Georgia. The Georgia whose capital city is Tbilisi and whose population is around 4 million.
This one.
This particular Georgia is on my mind because I just received an email from the Senior Rights Manager at Scholastic Australia (one of my favourite people) telling me of an offer to publish Don’t Call Me Ishmael there.
If that publication goes ahead it will be 8th overseas edition of DCM Ishmael (Italy, Germany, USA, Czechoslovakia, France, UK, Israel) and the 6th translation.
Amazing to think that this book which was first published in Australia 18 years ago (!) can still find a new home after all that time. I’m both thrilled and very grateful.
The photo above is from the book-launch of DCM Ishmael at Padua College Brisbane in 2006. And see those three boys behind me? I have no idea who they were but looking at them now I realise they would be pretty great matches for the roles of Ishmael, James Scobie and Razz!
Apart from that good news the main thing I’ve been doing this week is re-reading Ishmael and the Return of the Dugongs and Ishmael and the Hoops of Steel checking to see if there needs to be any minor changes to the original text before they are both reprinted with updated covers in May next year.
In the end only one or two really outdated references were changed (because they would be lost on modern readers) and one typo was corrected but other than that everything stayed the same even though at times it’s obvious both books were written a number of years ago.
One interesting thing about reading your own books again years after they’ve been published is that you come across some things you’d forgotten you’d written. One was this little paragraph from Book 3 with Ishmael commenting on Orazio Zorzotto (Razz/the Razzman) dropping out of Economics.
But there were a couple of other things I don’t think I’ll ever forget from the first half of Year Twelve.
One was the (overjoyed) look on Razz’s face when he saw his Semester One report card. I’d be guessing it matched the look on Mr Farmer’s face when Razz gave him the sad news that he wouldn’t be in his Economics class any more.
This made me smile because as well as being an ex-English teacher I also taught Economics. I’d actually forgotten that I’d named the Economics teacher in Hoops of Steel Mr Farmer.
Since Bauer in the German language means ‘farmer’, the teacher was more or less me in disguise. Even though I loved the wild, unpredictable and always-joking Razz as a character, I’m not sure how well I would have coped with having a ‘real’ Razz in one of my classes.
Possibly, like Mr Farmer, I’d be more than happy to see the back of him!
(And if any ex-students are reading this please refrain from any sarcastic or hurtful comments – I’m a sensitive artiste now!)
And of course I guess you’re wondering about my overall reaction to my re-read of the Ishmael trilogy. What did I think? How would I review them?
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell, I’m way too humble to say things like ‘Works of towering genius!’ or ‘By far the best comedy series to ever come out of Australia!’
But if YOU would like to say those sorts of things, then in the words of Ishmael and the Razzman, I’d be TOTALLY COOL with that!
Cheers
Michael
Michael Gerard Bauer Author 
Hi Mr. Bauer
I just wanted to say that I really, really love the Ishmael Leseur series (I would write more but my love is basically indescribable) and.. um just thank you for writing them!! They’ve helped inspire me to try out/do a lot of things (like debating!) and I LOVE the humour and the general messages. The books have made me really happy (still do!) and I really enjoy reading them! Thank you so much for the lovely stories and books 🙂
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Hi. Thank you so much for taking the time to write and send such lovely feedback. Couldn’t get a better review than that. I’ve said before that the Ishmael series is very close to my heart and I had so much fun writing each of the books and spending time with all those characters who were like real people to me. As a result I am always grateful to anyone who has taken the time to complete the full journey with Ishmael and the gang right through to graduation. If the books have given you joy, made you happy and encouraged you take on new challenges, I dont think any author could ask for more than that. Thanks again for writing. You made more than just my day. You are totally rigid! Cheers Michael/.
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Very cool books
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I really love all three Ishmael books and greatly enjoyed reading them – once on vacation while sipping coffee on a sunbathed balcony in Saas Grund (Switzerland) and serveral other times, the originals and the German translations. But although they are probably works of towering genius and surely by far the best comedy series to ever come out of Australia (YOU said, you’d be totally cool with that!), I was much more impressed by how warmly and lovingly you treat your characters and how you present their unique view of the world to the reader. I found it to be heart-wrenching at times, but also, and above all, hilarious. This is just to say: Thank you for these books, for taking the time and the heart to write them. – Regards from Germany
Hartmut
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Thank you so much Hartmut. Your feedback is very much appreciated. During school visits and other talks I sometimes get asked about my favourite scenes in the books. My reply is that while I like the big comic scenes, my favourite parts of the stories are actually the more poignant or serious scenes where characters real feelings are revealed and where the depth of friendships and relationships are exposed. So I think I am like you in that regard. I can tell you this in all honesty. When I re-read the trilogy recently there were times when I still smiled over some line or incident, but there were more times when I blinked tears from my eyes. That probably sounds a bit weird because I’m talking about something I wrote myself. But the stories are close to my heart and the characters became like real people because I spent so much time writing and thinking about them. Not only that, they were also people I grew very close to and fond of, so their joys and sorows still touch me. Thanks again Hartmut for your lovely comments and for taking the time to journey with Ishmael and the gang from beginning to end. Cheers Michael.
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These books will definitely remain among my all-time favourites. I am very happy to hear that you feel the same way about your own creation. I do not think it is weird, it is just the prove of quality for your writing and of you being a “sensitive artiste“ – or at the very least a human being with a kind heart (so no need to select all images with traffic lights there). Warm regards, Hartmut
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