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Writer Rebekah Palmer wanted to write a children's action book that was about kids helping other kids without an adult in sight.
She came up with a series - the first book is to be launched later this month - about a rescue helicopter called Champ the Chopper,
piloted by red-headed Pete and carrying his twin sister Piper as the paramedic.
There are no grown-ups in the book, "and that's deliberate because I wanted the kids to be role-models".
"Kids like to feel in power, you know, because they're so small and they're not allowed to do stuff, so they really like heroes that go off and do good things and save the day," she said at her home in Wellington's Island Bay.
Thirty-eight-year-old Palmer, daughter of former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer, started her writing career as a journalist working for the Nelson Mail.
Her father's abrupt promotion after David Lange resigned in 1989 came while Palmer was at journalism school in Christchurch.
"It wasn't a very good time to be a journalism student!"
But her father's position as an MP and then prime minister allowed her into a world that most teenagers would never see.
At the tender age of 15, she was attending a ball at Government House, wearing a "God-awful blue dress" when she and her brother literally bumped into Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
"We forgot all the protocol," she said.
But they did get to shake the hands of the heir to the throne and his glamorous wife.
Now, firmly away from the spotlight, Palmer and her partner Bernie work from home, writing for public and private sector clients, as well as creating novels, and are parents to daughters, Gwendoline, 6 and Ursula, 3.
Palmer said her daughters were great sounding boards for her book ideas and had even contributed to the Champ story with Gwendoline naming the dog in the book - Zoom.
Her story also impressed Oscar-winner Richard Taylor, who arranged for two of the Weta Workshop staff, Daniel Falconer and Chris Guise, to illustrate the books.
He introduced Palmer to some studios so the story could be transformed from pages in the book on to television sets.
"Richard Taylor really loved the concept - I think he remembered Thunderbirds from when he was a kid, in terms of going off on the rescue missions."
Palmer said she hoped Champ would appeal to boys of this generation, just as Taylor had been drawn to the awkward puppets that operated the Thunderbird jets.
Boys seemed to lose interest in reading at an earlier age than girls, which could in part be to do with the subjects children's stories cover, Palmer said.
She pointed to Thomas the Tank Engine, which was a popular book among all children, "even though the story is rather dire.
"If you get something that they're interested in then it holds them and hooks them into the story and once you've got them interested in the story then they hook into the words and learn to read.
"So I was looking around at all different types of machines and so on and looking at kids' books and what was out there already. Apart from Thomas the Tank Engine, there was not a lot else in terms of machines."
Palmer said she wanted a "social good" to come from her books, especially if it was going to be made into a television series.
"A lot of kids' TV very quickly becomes violent, even if it's aimed at small children.
"You sort of get the Bob the Builder and the Thomas the Tank Engine, and then the next step up it becomes like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."
The busy mum said she had no plans to relax after the launch of the first Champ book on September 15, and has a number of other projects lined up. "I've got so many ideas, it's just a matter of getting them all done."
- NZPA
