Bob Kerr has written and illustrated a range of picture books for children. Kerr’s own junior novel, The Optimist (1992), about sailing misadventures, won the 1993 Best First Children’s Book Award. He published a collection of short stories for 8 to 12-year-olds in 1998, Strange Tales from the Mall, which was short-listed for the 1999 New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards. His pictorial history book, After the War (2000), was short-listed for the 2001 New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards. Biography and photo courtesy of Read NZ.