Features

The Reckoning: Disturbing Reading

Should children be exposed to books about slavery, racism and violence? Today Sisilia Eteuati, an Auckland writer, lawyer and mother, gives us her very good reasons for putting serious subject matter on her children’s bookshelves. On the eve of my…

THE SAMPLING: Dinosaur Trouble: The Runaway Coat

The Runaway Coat is Book 3 of the brand new hilarious junior fiction series from the creators of the bestselling Dinosaur Rescue. Mewburn and Bixley have teamed up to create a revolting, funny series for younger readers – prequels to the Dinosaur Rescue books.

THE SAMPLING: Taupo Blows!

Rachel and Sam are at home alone with their dog Choky when the biggest volcano on New Zealand’s Volcanic Plateau erupts without warning. With the roads destroyed by the earthquakes that follow, and the lake deadly, there is no way to escape.

THE SAMPLING: Into the White

The enthralling and harrowing true story of Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition, with evocative photographs, and illustrations by Sarah Lippett. Together, they have taken on the greatest march ever made and come very near to great success; never giving up, and never giving up on each other.

THE SAMPLING: One House for All & Witchfairy

Book Island began here in New Zealand, but is now based in Bristol in the UK. These two books are focused on how to embrace difference. One House for All explains how three very different friends discover how best to build a house they can all live in.

THE SAMPLING: Rain Fall

Fifteen-year-old Annie needs to get to her basketball match, but the police have cordoned off her road. Is her neighbour, who she grew up with, still alive? What has he done to have the police after him? A murder investigation brings new people to Annie’s wild West Coast town, including a dark-haired boy riding the most amazing horse she has ever seen.

THE SAMPLING: Catch Me When You Fall

A moving novel about learning to find happiness in the face of uncertainty and discovering a love that transcends the boundary between life and death. Seventeen-year-old Alex Byrd is about to have the worst day of her life, and the best. A routine blood test that will reveal her leukaemia has returned, but she also meets Jamie Orange. Both teenagers have big dreams, but also big obstacles to overcome.

THE SAMPLING: Time Twins

Eleven-year-old Astrid thinks she is imagining the quiet boy who appears in her room in the middle of the night and then vanishes as if by magic. Astrid lives in Sweden. She discovers the boy’s name is Tamati and he lives in New Zealand on the other side of the world.

THE SAMPLING: Lily Max: Sun, Surf, Action

Young fashionista Lily Max reunites with her long-lost BFF Greer at a beautiful surf beach, where the movie ‘Wave’ is being filmed. A perfect summer together stretches out before them … until local surfer-boy Ryder becomes an unwanted third wheel.

THE SAMPLING: How to Bee

A story about family, loyalty, kindness and bravery, set against an all-too-possible future where climate change has forever changed the way we live. Peony lives with her sister and grandfather on a fruit farm outside the city. In a world where real bees are extinct, the quickest, bravest kids climb the fruit trees and pollinate the flowers by hand. All Peony really wants is to be a bee.