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Zachary was born into such a cocoon of love, he should have grown in grace and beauty, and when he didn’t, they all blamed Zachary. But it wasn’t his fault entirely; the threads had started unraveling long before he came on the scene. He would never know the truth of his own story unless fate dealt a trick card in the game of life. And what did it have to do with a loner like Bruno?

Bruno, on a community order, has his own problems to deal with. He just has to clock up his community order and put up with the two old ladies until his hours are up. After that, well, nothing is ever really going to change for him, is it?

Only Bruno’s old biddy wasn’t quite what he expected. Nor was the strange old lady across the way. They actually talked to him, not at him. That Mrs. Schmidt, she was angry too, just like him. What was the bee in her bonnet? When he found out, he had a lot of re-thinking to do.

But Bruno had questions of his own that needed to be answered. Why did Mrs. Dwyer get so hung up about this Zachary kid? And could his future turn around too? Didn’t he just have to clock up his hours until his community service was over?


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What Our Readers Are Saying

I think this is an important read. Not just for kids and their parents, but for teachers and the general market as well. Why? Because it's about our own kids, troubled Aussie kids that we all know are out there. It's not about problems generated by war-torn environments or gang pressures in New York. It's about ordinary Australian kids in ordinary Australian suburbs who often have to cope with delinquent parents, poverty, and a largely self-serving society. Their pathway out of that cycle isn't easy, and the future, warped by a past, not of their making, must be frightening for them.

Zachary is a spectre, almost invisible in a respectable suburban community, but not so Bruno. He's much more visible with his streak of angry defiance. He's one of those 'to be avoided' type of kids. All 'respectable' people know these 'troublemakers' are born that way. That a respectable uncaring society could have moulded them is way too uncomfortable to contemplate. So, people avoid eye contact and look the other way. Bruno knows this. So do the other boys doing Community Service to pay their debt to a society that has failed them.

It's the telling of these boys’ stories that I think is so important. We expect so much of our children. We expect them to grow up to be good, well-adjusted adults despite what gets thrown at them along the way. In For Love Of Zachary it is two old ladies Bruno encounters in a Retirement Village that finally bring hope and a sense of being into a troubled life.

I liked it very much.


M. Murphy


Marie Murphy is an award-wining scriptwriter and a member of the Tamworth Hall of Fame. She is also a life member of the Australian Songwriters Association Inc.


I have just read Kathleen McLennan's For Love of Zachary and found from the first pages how her insight into Bruno was spot-on. He had to see for himself how he could excel at things and learn respect for people. But it was the horror of the paintings of the concentration camps that made him know he was much better off and had choices. He realized that he could make a better life. It was all up to him!

I enjoyed the story so much and hope there is a follow up to come.

Thank you again, Kathleen McLennan (I am a Fan)


Gail Bourke



Gail Bourke is an artist whose works were selected for the Gerald Outdoor Art Exhibition for Moomba.

She raised her younger brothers before raising her own family. She knows very well the mischief kids can get up to - and I was often one of them - and how to make better choices for a different kind of life.


Award Winning Author

Kathleen moved to Kyneton and has published three novels on Amazon in the past five years.

'The Gam Namu' - a Korean family's survival in the 20th century, 'The Dogs of Barony Lodge' a canine adventure romp for dog lovers from nine to 90, and 'The Colonel Takes a Wife', a tribute to Jane Austen, as the stories unfurl of Anne De Bourgh and Colonel Fitzwilliam, the last unmarried characters from 'Pride and Prejudice'.


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About Author

Kathleen V. McLennan .

Kathleen V. McLennan loved teaching for 25 years before changing careers in 1983 to work as an educational journalist and co-ordinator of Telecom Australia's educational projects, now Telstra. 

 

Her work included various media formats announcing the coming changes to education via online learning. She took early retirement due to severe vision impairment but continued to write as a hobby.

 

Now Kathleen collects stories of ordinary people whose lives never hit the headlines. Many of her stories are complete fiction but created around real events that affected real families. Bruno, Zachary, and Mrs. Schmidt - although fictional - were all based on real people and their experiences in real situations in their pasts. This year Kathleen won third prize in the Mary River Press Short Story Competition for 'Suni and The Boy'. She has won many awards for short stories, poems, and lyrics.

 

Kathleen has twice won the Australian Songwriters' National Award for Best Lyrics, and in the years from 1994-2000, was shortlisted every single year. Recently she won Best Lyrics for 'Dreams' from her musical 'Wintersong' and Best Poem, Trentham Words in Winter, for 'Tanjil Bren'.

 

Kathleen moved to Kyneton and has published three novels on Amazon in the past five years.

'The Gam Namu' - a Korean family's survival in the 20th century,

'The Dogs of Barony Lodge' a canine adventure romp for dog lovers from nine to 90, and 'The Colonel Takes a Wife', a tribute to Jane Austen, as the stories unfurl of Anne De Bourgh and Colonel Fitzwilliam, the last unmarried characters from 'Pride and Prejudice'.

 

Kathleen also supports community theatre and is a patron of the Kyneton Theatre Company. In 2019, KTC presented Kathleen's musical, 'Wintersong', a gentle story of Australia's new society in the 1890s. She is currently researching a new musical.