CRAW, Rachel Spark Walker, 2014 461pp $19.95 pbk ISBN 9781922179623 SCIS 1662070 Evie seems to be undergoing physical and emotional changes, from a normal 17 year old girl into someone with seemingly impossible strengths. She learns that she has inherited powers in her DNA through her mother’s line, and is drawn by inexorable impulses to protect her best friend from an unidentified killer who may strike anywhere, anytime. Evie struggles to understand what is happening to her as she learns to deal with her powers, and to recognise friend from foe – but into which category does irresistible Jamie fit?…
Author: Admin
CHARLTON-TRUJILLO, e. E. Fat Angie Candlewick, 2013 264pp $19.95 ISBN 9780763661199 SCIS 1610650 There is a great deal of hate in this novel. Angie is overweight and bullied at school, and her brother, Wang, and her mother are nasty to her. Her beloved sister, a soldier, has been missing in Iraq for months, and given up for dead by her family. Angie sees her mother as a person who can’t be bothered with her living daughter, and her brother as a criminal in the making. Her father has left. She has known the boy over the road, Jake, since childhood,…
Christine BONGERS Intruder Woolshed Press, 2014 328pp $18.99 pbk ISBN 9780857983763 SCIS 1658498 This is a beautifully written, well paced book with a strong storyline and complex, well rounded characters. Kat has led a difficult life and when an intruder breaks into her home it suddenly becomes a whole lot more complicated. For her protection, her Dad insists she either sleeps next door, with the neighbour that she believes betrayed her mother, or she accepts a guard dog to stay with her, even though she is terrified by dogs. Hercules, the ugliest dog ever, becomes her companion and her need to…
AUSTIN, Keith Snow White Red Fox, 2014 391pp $17.99 ISBN 9781849415583 SCIS 1664670 John Creed is a bit of loner, living with his grandfather after his parents’ death in a big old house in London. He is used to being different; he is marked by three livid scars on his face, by his stutter, his poverty and his isolated lifestyle. Gradually he makes friends with Fyre King, a girl who also stands out for being different as she is an albino. Together they combat the class bully Caspar Locke who actually has his own issues to confront. This could be…
AGNEW, Leonie Conrad Cooper’s Last Stand Penguin (NZ), 2014 224pp NZ$19.99 pbk ISBN 9780143571193 SCIS 1660677 Young (10 year old) Conrad is a quirky lad who struggles with his sense of identity. Given that he never knew his biological father and is very uncertain of his relationship with his stepfather Gaz (who is a police officer focussed on the idea of boundaries and accountability), and given that he is worried about his compliant mother and all the hidden arguments and disturbances of family life, Conrad struggles with the tension between subjectivity (performing his duties and being compliant) versus agency (what…
FENTON, Corinne Hey Mum, I Love You Black Dog, 2014 unpaged A$18.95 NZ$21.99 ISBN 9781922244581 SCIS 1656544 Corinne Fenton has produced a picture book for infants that is visually appealing and sure to become a favourite that readers will want to revisit. The format is uncomplicated with the statement ‘I love your more than…’ followed by a number of comparisons such as ‘the smoochiest kiss’ with bold font emphasizing the key word and an appropriate animal photograph opposite. Bold primary colours adorn the front cover and an inquisitive piglet peeping at the reader entices us to look inside. Printed on…
ELLIS, Belinda ʞɔɒd-to-front-Bob Scholastic (NZ), 2014 unpaged NZ$19.50 pbk ISBN 9781775431831 SCIS 1662028 Here is a wonderful picture book to encourage children to be ‘word nerds’ as detailed in the professional resources section (Overturf et al). In every class there is potentially a top poet of the future, a storyteller who has a love for the magic of word games, who enjoys the pleasure of rhythm and rhyme, whose linguistic intelligence just needs to be fired up and given space. Have you heard of palindromes? Well, young Bob is a word nerd who just loves to play with words, especially…
CRUMBLE, P. (text) Louis Shea (illus.) The Tortoise and the Hair Scholastic, 2014 unpaged $14.99 pbk ISBN 9781743625286 This is a charming reworking of the old Aesop Fable. Whilst the original tale feature a footrace between an overly confidant hare and a determined but slow moving tortoise this book is a little different. The tortoise is now a rock and roll carapace clad performer hoping to make it big on stage. His secret weapon, or so he thinks, is a wig styled after Elvis himself. The hopeful tortoise loses his wig just before the big competition and becomes sure he…
COLE, Steve (text) Bruce Ingham (illus.) Go to Sleep or I Let Loose the Leopard Random House, 2014 unpaged NZ$19.99 pbk ISBN 9781780080628 For those parents who would like to hire a three-day nanny because of the chaos of rambunctious children, be warned that there are other techniques that are politically-speaking, less correct. It’s Joe and Ellie’s bedtime but they refuse to go to bed as they needed to fight mattress-monsters as well as wrestle wild wardrobes! Yee-Hoooo. Bang! The new babysitter has to go upstairs for the twenty-seventh time and is very cross. Joe and Ellie go to bed,…
CLARKE, Pat (text) Graeme Compton (illus.) The Flying Lesson Little Steps, 2014 unpaged $25.00 ISBN 9781925117035 SCIS 1661165 No one knows what Grandad is doing in the shed, only that there is a lot of thumping and crashing from inside. In the nearby hen house the secret is spread with a round of Chinese whispers; could it really be a Vulture Bite? When Grandad finally reveals his project it’s not a Vulture Bite, but an Ultralight. He asks Wally the cockatoo to help him learn how to fly his plane, but on his maiden flight the plane crashes into a…