Little did Magali know that when she went to sleep that night, she wouldn't see her family again for a very long time...

Yes or No: Marmots are supposed to sleep all winter. Correct.

So, how does a sleeping marmot get thrown out of her burrow? And, meet snowboarding animals?!

Boar, deer, rabbits, hedgehogs, foxes, chamois, and hare shred the pistes at night, and Magali's never seen anything like it. She's never even spoken to other animals before.

This marmot tries to find her way home, but can't. So she surrenders to her situation. She offers Maurice The Mouton seven walnuts for a snowboard and learns to take the chairlift, go down blue runs, then red runs. Then, she gets addicted to the Snowpark, and now she doesn't even want to go home. Not with the Ride Or Die Slalom Competition coming up. It's the biggest and most fun winter event with animals coming from all over to participate. She needs to be a part of it! She needs to ride. Or die.

Dude, seriously. When is she going to go home?


A French marmot who is an accidental sports addict! Middle grade book for 8-12 yrs.
Young readers will enjoy this fantasy adventure book, set in the French Alps. There are animals of all sizes; foxes, boar, lynx, deer, rabbits, eagles, hedgehogs, owls, you name it, shredding the slopes while Big People are tucked up in their chalets!

'Fun, easy to read and my 12 year old enjoyed it a lot.'


Each book can be read as an individual book or as part of the Dude Series. The books have British spelling. For ages 8-12 years.

Dude's Gotta Snowboard (Book 1)
Dude's Gotta River Raft (Book 2)
Dude's Gotta Mountain Bike (Book 3)
Dude's Gotta Paraglide (Book 4)
Dude's Gotta Bobsleigh (Book 5)
Dude's Gotta Rock Climb (Book 6)
Dude's Gotta Paintball (Book 7)
Dude's Gotta Wakeboard (Book 8 Final book in the series)


Question for the Author
How did you come up with the character of Magali?
'You know, I really love the French Alps, and looking at all the animals that live in the mountains. I'm Australian, so I had never seen a marmot before moving to France. I worked one summer, for a kids' summer camp, and part of my job was to take the children out on walks. We would go looking for marmots, all of us being very quiet, secretly sneaking up to the holes in the ground, where the entrances to the marmot burrows were. Of course, we would make too much noise and the marmots would disappear into their underground tunnels, but sometimes we were lucky and able to take photos. I think their underground homes took over my imagination, and before you knew it, I had a whole chapter book in my head, with Magali as the principal character!'