AS part of the Appledore Book Festival's Schools' Week, Holsworthy Community College welcomed two authors last week, one with a passion for animals, the other for history. On Tuesday, September 16 Gill Lewis visited the college to speak to Year 8 students. She told them her inspiration came from her childhood fascination with animals and her career as a vet, so the relationship of people with animals was the main theme of her stories. She focussed on her first novel, 'Sky Hawk', which relates what happens when two Scottish children discover an osprey and have to struggle to protect the rare birds at all costs. She told the students she worked in a tree house in her garden in Somerset, sharing the company of spiders, and before writing she drew her characters and tried to 'live in their heads'. After reading an extract from 'Sky Hawk' to the accompaniment of film of birds in flight she invited students to come forward and act out the role of a bird or undersea creature. For the full report, and a round-up of the area news and sport, see this week's edition of the Post.