The wizard wasn't to know it was Friday the 13th conspiring against him in Robyn Burke's new kids' book.

The wizard had restless sleep. He woke up half dead, the shower was cold, the milk had curdled, it was hosing down outside (but only on his house), and there were dragons and lizards loose inside. He was having a hell of a day.

'What's a Wizard to do?' is the ongoing rhetorical question for every misfortune that bedevils the wizard. It's the title of Robyn Burke's new book, and it's also the Black Friday in her imagination.

The reality of Black Friday is actually a little darker than the wizard's predicament in the book. One version of events is that on Friday, September 24, 1869, a gold panic was caused by two rogue speculators manipulating the New York Gold Exchange. The conspiracy took the entire US economy to the brink on what became known as Black Friday.

Now, when the day turned intolerably bad for Robyn Burke's wizard, he suddenly discovered it was Friday 13, Black Friday, and he pulled the plug – he went back to bed.

He pulls the blankets

Up over his head.

That's what the Wizard will do,

He'll get up on Saturday instead.

Mere mortals can relate to this wizard. He is likeable and pragmatic rather than magical.

‘What's a Wizard To Do' is a charming and funny poem book for four to eight year olds, but with a sad, sad back story. Because the poem book has been published posthumously, in memoriam, by Robyn's Mum.

'Yes, it is a sad story, but I thought the poem was just too good not to do anything with. And Robyn spent so much time and energy writing.”

What's a Wizard to do? What was a proud and grieving Mum to do?

Robyn Burke was 51 when she died tragically of an asthma attack. 'She had been a bad asthmatic all her life,” says Mum, Margaret Burke. 'But when we moved from the Waikato to Tauranga, she grew out of it.”

Work took Robyn back to Waikato. 'I don't think that was a wise idea. She was quite careless about her health and she left it too long to get help.”

Publishing her daughter's poem three years after her death was a very difficult and emotional process. 'Oh yes, she was the second child I have lost. Two out of three. Our son drowned while fishing 12 years ago.”

Robyn Burke, now a published author, was a journalist with history and law degrees. She set out to be a policy writer but ended up behind a camera. 'That's why she loved newspaper reporting because she could take her own photos.”

When that ended Robyn, who as a child loved the ‘Elsa' and ‘Little House on the Prairie' stories, and remembered them in the minutest detail, turned to writing her own kids' novels and poems.

And Mum Margaret had a role. 'As soon as Robyn finished a script, she would bring it to me to type up. I had been a typing tutor.”

'What's a Wizard To Do?” is the first to be published. There was a run of 250.

Copies of the book are available at Books A Plenty or by emailing: rarasversesnz@gmail.com

There's another 20 or so poems that may be published, and four or five novels. Robyn Burke lives on in her writing.