How many of these Tristan Bancks books have you read?
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Cop & Robber is on both the Premier's and the Wyvern Reading Challenge.
PRC ID Number 877869
For the Wyvern Challenge, write the title of this book in the top section of your log.
Cop & Robber, my new crime-thriller for 10-14 year-olds, has a book soundtrack that I listened to over and over again as I wrote. I tried to find songs that felt good and that captured the tone of the story. The music put me in a certain mood and that mood tapped me back in, even if it had been a week, a month or a year since I last worked on it.
Click on the link below to read about how I chose the songs and then preview these songs on the soundtrack for the book Cop & Robber.
Click on the image to read the Library record.
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Tristan Bancks tells stories for the page and screen. His books for kids and teens include Two Wolves, The Fall, Detention, the Tom Weekly series, and Nit Boy. Ginger Meggs, Tristan’s 100th anniversary book of short stories, is based on characters created by his great-great uncle, Jimmy Bancks, in 1921. His books have won and been shortlisted for many awards, including a Children’s Book Council of Australia Honour Book, the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, ABIA, YABBA, KOALA, NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and Queensland Literary Awards. His new release is Cop & Robber, a nailbiting crime story.
Where did the idea for the story come from?
I was driving to visit a school in Queensland one day and I had a voice in my head about a kid whose dad was always robbing service stations and the dad thought he was really good at it, but he wasn’t. He was hopeless.
At my school visit we were talking about crime writing. I read a group of year 8s what I’d written and they responded well and it started a discussion. One of the kids’ parents was a cop and so I wondered … what if my character’s other parent was a police officer and they actually lived in the police station?
In my town, the police station was also a house. And I wondered what it might be like if you lived in the police station and you heard your parent arresting people through your bedroom wall. What would it be like to be the kid of a police officer? Would it be exciting and fun and would you get to see things that other kids don’t get to see? Or would it be scary sometimes, worrying that something might happen to your parent?
Would other kids think you were cool because of your mum being a police officer? What about in high school? Would that change at all?
So, Nash became the son of a cop and a robber. And he was stuck in the middle. This situation seemed unlikely if the parents were still together. But what if they had broken up, they were divorced and he spent half the week at each of their houses?
Now I felt as though I had a story that I wanted to explore. I thought it could be quite exciting and funny at the same time.
Crime Fiction Characteristics (some or all of these characteristics could be present.)
How many crime fiction characteristics are present in Cop & Robber?
1. A crime is committed
2. A morally upright, intelligent and isolated protagonist who often has a personal interest in the case.
3. A villain is present.
4. Clues and red herrings or false clues that lead to the solving of the crime. These clues are often so difficult to see that only the incredible intellect of the sleuth can see them, though from the point they are revealed, seem obvious.
5. Danger and or conflict that must be faced by the hero.
6. A satisfactory resolution, where right is restored to the world and justice has been dealt out by the protagonist​
7. Ethical decisions and a moral message.
Cop & Robber is a new nailbiter from the bestselling author of Two Wolves, The Fall and Detention.
If your mum was a cop and your dad was a crim who needed your help to commit a crime, would you do it to save him? At what cost?
Nash Hall’s dad is a criminal who just can’t seem to go straight. He wants Nash to help him commit a robbery. A big one. The trouble is, Nash’s mum is a cop. And the robbery is at Nash’s school. But Dad owes a lot of money to some very dangerous people and if Nash doesn’t help him do the job, it could cost both their lives.
Click on the link below to begin reading Chapter One and Chapter Two.
Each week after completing your reading of Cop & Robber, choose one of the following prompts to complete your Reading Reflection sheet.
1. Make a prediction as to what will happen next in the story.
2. Choose a page from today's reading that stood out to you. Write the page number first. Why did this page stand out to you?
3. After reading, explain why you think the setting in the story today was important?
4. Write a question that you have about Cop & Robber after reading part of the story today.
5. Choose one of the main characters. Explain two things you have learned about them.
6. Think about the reading today. Can you make a connection to yourself, or the wider world or another text you have read. Choose one to use to write your prompt.
7. Making a decision is one of the most important things a character will do in a novel. In Cop & Robber many characters make decisions. If, in your reading today, a decision has been made, would you have made the same decision? Why or why not?
8. Finish this sentence. Today's reading was important to the storyline because..............
9. Tristan Bancks injects humour into his telling of this story to lighten the mood. Give an example of humour from your reading today.
I’ve dreamed, for a long time, about gamifying my books. This is the first attempt – bringing My Life & Other Exploding Chickens to life! Tom Weekly’s mad scramble to catch as many chickens as he can before they explode mirrors his crazy life in the book where he is attacked by killer clowns, evil dentists, giant headlice and ninja librarians. (You can read a free sample here.)