Kampiyuta-kurlangu Mapanpa

Kampiyuta-kurlangu Mapanpa - The Computer Ghost

A children's book based on true events. Written by Bill Apró. Translated into Warlpiri - Yuendumu dialect.

In 1989, a teenage hacker in Melbourne broke into NASA, a nuclear laser facility, and the White House. He shut down a space station. He aimed a laser across America. He thought no one could see him.

He was wrong.

One policeman could see ghosts in the digital world - traces left behind by hackers who thought they were invisible. He built an impossible device to catch them. He tracked the ghost across the world's networks. And when he finally found him, the hacker was nineteen years old, alone in a bedroom, surrounded by pizza boxes and a poster that read "Phoenix St."

This is that story - retold for children.

In this book, eight-year-old Liza discovers a strange woman in her favourite game. Her knight is gone. Her world is grey. Her father - a policeman who sees things other people can't - tells her the truth: a ghost lives inside her tablet.

What follows is a journey through digital ruins and Hungarian castles, through midnight watches and dawn raids, through the map of damage a lonely ghost left across the world - and the question every child must eventually answer: what would you do with the power to be invisible?

The ghosts were real. The hackers were real. The places are real - you can visit them. The castle still stands outside Budapest. The ruins still hold their secrets. The space station still orbits overhead.

This Warlpiri edition - translated into the Yuendumu dialect for children of the Tanami Desert - carries the story into one of Australia's oldest living languages. The ghosts of Hungary meet the spirits of Warlpiri country. Permission was asked. Permission was given. The story was told properly.

For the curious minds, the brave hearts, and the ones who ask "why?"

Turn the page. The story begins.