The Little Yellow Digger 1 2 3

The Little Yellow Digger 1 2 3 Author: Peter Gilderdale Illustrator: Fifi Colston Scholastic (2025) 24 pages, paperback ISBN 978 1 77543 956 1

It is wonderful to see Betty and Alan Gilderdale’s Little Yellow Digger series being continued so ably by their son, Peter Gilderdale, and illustrator Fifi Colston. (There are now over a million Little Yellow Digger copies in print!) In the latest volume, The Little Yellow Digger 1 2 3, Peter Gilderdale uses simple verse to create a first counting book: ‘1 little yellow digger driving up the street. 2 brightly coloured diggers suddenly meet.’ Sharp-eyed readers will spot that each digger driver has brought his (or her) dog with them, so there are two dogs. Sharper-eyed readers will spot that each digger has also been tailed to the building site by a sparrow, so there are now two birds. More machines arrive (along with more dogs and more sparrows). Soon the sparkling clean diggers are becoming dusty. ‘4 busy working diggers digging up the ground.’ After a rain shower and a small flood, we see the ‘8 dirty, mucky diggers STUCK in the mud.’ The birds are smart enough to fly over the mud, but eight dogs are rolling in it! Of course, some of the diggers have to be towed out of the mud and so – as always – the Little Yellow Digger helps save the day. The final pages have nine drivers hosing down their diggers, while the tenth driver hoses down the ten delighted dogs. The ten sparrows have found their own ablution puddle. A final number check from 1 to 10 has the Little Yellow Digger driving homewards, followed by ten dogs. Fifi Colston’s colourful illustrations also carefully include the dogs and birds in all the activities described in the story. The ever-increasing bands of dogs and sparrows can be seen digging, getting wet in the rain, getting muddy and in the tenth picture having a lovely bath. Lovers of heavy machinery – a category that includes almost all children – will be delighted to find that Fifi Colston has used the rear endpaper to provide an identifying profile of the ten digging machines, from a back hoe to a mining excavator. For the record, the little yellow digger is officially a ‘mini digger.’ The Little Yellow Digger 1 2 3 is a delightful introduction to the world of counting and numbers.

Review 3811 Trevor Agnew 5 Nov 2025

It’s a Bit More Complicated Than That Hannah Marshall

It’s a Bit More Complicated Than That Author: Hannah Marshall Allen & Unwin (2025), 310 pages, paperback ISBN 978 1 99100 694 3

New Zealand Fish of the Week: Ngā Ika o Te Wiki Gillian & Adrian Torckler

New Zealand Fish of the Week: Ngā Ika o Te Wiki Author: Gillian Torckler Photographs: Adrian Torckler Bateman (2025)32 pages, paperback ISBN 978 1 77689 137 5

New Zealand Fish of the Week is an original and attractive reader. It deftly uses the days of the week to introduce six prominent sea-dwellers before concluding with a Sunday rollcall of nine more. Gillian Torckler’s text is a delight to read aloud, because it is based on the familiar nursery rhyme, Monday’s child. ‘Monday’s fish glides over the weed. Tuesday’s fish swims past at great speed.’ Each day’s fish is given its name in both Māori and English. Simple factual material is given in a text box, so young readers learn that Monday’s fish, shown cruising through the seaweed, is the whai keo or eagle ray, which swims by flapping its ‘wings’ like a bird. Tuesday’s fish is the famously fast-moving takeketonga or striped marlin. The days of the week are given in both Māori and English. The photos by Adrian Torckler are stunning, each one a double-page, underwater, colour portrait of a fish. Of course, several popular marine animals which are not technically fish are included, so a shark, dolphin and lobster duly make an appearance. Manaia or seahorse turns up as a pregnant father clinging to some kelp: 'Wednesday’s fish holds on very tight.' There is always a delight in learning something new and New Zealand Fish of the Week is full of factual surprises. Petipeti, also known as comb jelly, is an unexpected entry but I now know that it is not a jellyfish and that it doesn’t sting. It does, however, take a good photograph. Appropriately for bedtime reading, the book concludes with its fifteenth creature, the koura or crayfish, having a rest. Trevor Agnew 3 July 2025 First published in The Source (3784).

Bob Docherty wins Betty Gilderdale Award (2025)

 

Bob Docherty wins Betty Gilderdale Award (2025)

By Trevor Agnew, QSM

 “Reading delays aging.” – Bob Docherty

An acre of wildflowers blooms outside Christchurch's Aranui Library, while tiny football players scamper across Wainoni Park in the mid-spring sunshine. Inside Aranui Library, the scene is no less delightful. Kate De Goldi is praising Bob Docherty before presenting him with the 2025 Storylines Betty Gilderdale Award. Bob is relaxed modestly in the front row, flanked by his family and surrounded by the cream of New Zealand’s creators and curators of books for young people. Rachael King, Gavin Bishop, Desna Wallace and Bill Nagelkerke are among the applauding audience as Bob – now officially retired -  gets up to speak about – well, books – of course.

“A child who doesn’t read is no better off than a child who can’t read,” is Bob’s text for the day. After a lifetime of encouraging kids to read, he tells us there are three key factors to getting young people to read: parents, teachers and librarians. 

Scots-born and growing up in Lyttelton, Bob read widely as a boy, encouraged by his parents. As he recites the titles which entranced him at home and school, his audience sighs in shared recognition and remembrance. Chicken Licken, Winnie the Pooh, The Hobbit, Narnia, The Famous Five and Biggles all parade by. Bob honours his high school English teacher, Gordon Ogilvie, who introduced him to Animal Farm. More authors’ names flood out: Alistair MacLean, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Graham Greene. It says everything you need to know about Bob’s enthusiasm for books that he read Doctor Zhivago while travelling down the Amazon in 35 degrees heat.

Bob’s first role in the National Library was technical as Film Librarian but he was soon a Reference Librarian specialising in young people’s books. “I read like a madman,” he recalls. More names fly past as he names his favourites: Jack Lasenby, William Taylor, Margaret Mahy, David Hill, Tessa Duder and Joy Cowley. From making booklists, he went on to visiting schools, as well as talking at library conferences and teachers’ workshops, always with the message of “how to get kids enthused about books.”

From his popular visits to schools, Bob found that most boys wanted their books to be a ‘quick fix’, short and full of action. “They enjoy ‘getting-away-with-it stories!”  (He calculated that he visited every boys’ school in the South Island.) Girls had different tastes, often preferring longer stories about friendship and relationships. Bob feels that girls have now moved to having some attitudes similar to those of boys and are happily reading about vampires and zombies. “They are all interested in fairness and justice.”

Bob also developed his signature professional technique of giving his audiences a potted summary of a story, capturing their enthusiasm, and then refusing to tell how it ends.  Familiar names appear again: Paul Jennings, Anne Cassidy, John Marsden, Harry Potter, and Twilight. Who is the best role model? Hermione, it seems. 

[On a personal note, Ben Brown, Bob Docherty and I once formed an “expert” panel advising a Christchurch audience on how to get boys to read. Bob wove magic, re-telling stories and leaving the cliff-hanger endings dangling. By the end of the evening Bob had not only the boys but also their parents seeking out the stories.]

Undaunted by being made redundant from the National Library in 2009, Bob continued visiting schools, providing workshops and enthusing readers and teachers alike. He was a judge for the Children’s Book Awards. Best of all, he also created the wonderful website, Bob’s Books. It offers bright, well-informed reviews of books for young people.  

[On a personal note, the NZ Book Council once contracted me to locate some sources of good website reviews of New Zealand books for young adults. Bob’s reviews were the best. They always proved fresh, perceptive, positive and – important, this – they didn’t copy the publishers’ blurbs. Bob’s work was always original. He had read the book!]

Bob operated his website for a dozen years and over 2,300 books. Then he decided that “old age is a fulltime job,” and called a halt to school visits in 2021. In his retirement he wrote a memoir, Boomer, available on Amazon. In a typically Bob gesture, he also promised, “I will still work on my blog and add a few adult books that are suitable at lower levels and I will still read the odd children’s book.”

Bob continued this until his second retirement in April 2025. The Betty Gilderdale Award, presented by his fellow workers in the literary vineyard, is thus perfectly timed. It is also thoroughly deserved. By the end of his lively and enthusiastic speech – full text on the Storylines website –  Bob still found time to call out a few favourite stories, such as Mandy Hager’s Singing Home the Whale and A. N. Dixon’s The Edge of Light trilogy.

Yes, Bob has spent the afternoon making his audience want to read more books.

 Trevor Agnew, QSM,   November 2025

 

Fact Box: Winners of Storylines Betty Gilderdale Award Eve Sutton (1990) Dorothy Butler (1991) Elsie Locke (1992) Jo Noble (1993) Ron Bacon (1994) Graham Beattie (1996) Diane & Gary Hebley (1997) Phyllis Johnston (1998) Betty Gilderdale (1999) Veda Pickles (2001) Barbara Murison (2002) Jean Bennett (2003) Ray Richards (2004) John McKenzie (2005) Frances Plumpton (2006) Katerina Te Heikōkō Mataira (2007) Lois Rout (2008) Glyn Strange (2010) Ruth and John McIntyre (2011) Gerri Judkins (2012) Trevor Agnew (2013) Robyn Southam (2014) Trish Brooking (2015) Rosemary Tisdall (2016) Maureen Crisp (2017) Jeannie Skinner (2018) Crissi Blair (2019) Lorraine Orman (2020) Sarah Forster (2021) Libby Limbrick (2022) Joy Sellen (2024) Bob Docherty (2025)

 

Fact Box: The Storylines Betty Gilderdale Award “The Storylines Betty Gilderdale Award honours the late Betty Gilderdale, a lifelong advocate and supporter of children’s literature through her academic research, work as a reviewer and 30 years' committee service to Auckland’s Children’s Literature Association. Prior to 2000, the award was known as the Children’s Literature Association’s Award for Services to Children’s Literature. The award is given annually for outstanding service to children’s literature and literacy and carries a monetary prize of $2000. The recipient delivers a 40-minute address, known as the Storylines Spring Lecture, as part of the award presentation, usually in November. Nominations can be for distinguished service either at a regional or national level. Nominations are sought from the public and selection from those nominated is made by a panel selected by Storylines.”

 

 MAURICE  GEE  Looking back at his books for young people

On Re-reading Maurice Gee, By Trevor Agnew (June 2008)

Originally written for Magpies magazine, July 2008. 

Maurice Gee died on 12 June 2025. This article, written in June 2008, the month of his 'retirement' from writing discusses his twelve magnificent novels for young people. Gee later published The Limping Man (2010) and The Severed Land (2017) thus completing the Salt saga. This also gives Maurice Gee a ‘Fabulous Fourteen' novels for young people.

 MAURICE  GEE

Looking back at his books for young people

 Only three decades ago Maurice Gee was walking to work as a librarian at Epsom Teachers College, on a grey, misty morning. Suddenly he saw one of Auckland’s many extinct volcanic cones above him. He described the career-changing moment in his 2002 Margaret Mahy Lecture: ‘I saw Mount Eden sink down and hide itself behind the houses. Then, at the end of the street, it suddenly sprang up and loomed over me, and I thought, I wonder what is hiding under there. So I had my idea.’ 

            - Maurice Gee, Creeks and Kitchens, page 14.

 Gee’s idea led to Under the Mountain, a skilful mix of alien terror and suburban reality which has so far sold 70,000 copies, been made into a TV series (now out on DVD) and is also being filmed. It has become an iconic classic and the author has become one of the Grand Old Men of New Zealand young people’s literature.

Yet, Under the Mountain’s original reception was not wholly welcoming. Gee may have had his first hint of the occasional furores that were to accompany his career in children’s literature, when he read M.G.’s 147 word review in School Library Review, published by the National Library’s School Library Service:

‘An unsatisfactory, self-conscious fantasy. Although Auckland’s volcanic chain of mountains is given a plausible, fantastic dimension, and is the catalyst in the story, it is an obvious device, like some of the other narrative conventions used. They are not woven subtly into the fabric of the story but are laid bare in the initial chapters. From there, the central conflict is developed ponderously, even lugubriously. The Wilberforces, alias ‘People of the mud, who conquer and multiply’, are set against Mr Jones, the surviving member of ‘The people who understand’. Their complacency in the past had allowed the Wilberforces to gain ground and it becomes the Matheson twins’ task to stave them off and so save the world. The author revels in darkness and slime at the climax and a claustrophobic, tense atmosphere is created, but really, the story lacks cohesiveness. It is superficial and of transitory interest.’

- School Library Review, Vol 1, No 2, Winter 1980, page 17.

 Apart from the satisfaction of having Under the Mountain later win the Children’s Book of the Year Award, Gee’s only consolation from this harsh judgement would have been that M.G. (the critic who shared his initials) had at least spotted the ‘division into halves’ motif that Gee was to make his own in his other novels, as well as his careful use of settings with which would be familiar to many of his New Zealand readers. 

 With Gee’s retirement from writing last year, it seemed a good time to re-read all of his books for young people. Of course, since then Gee has kept on writing, so it was always going to be a case of scurrying after the master, rather than a tranquil retrospect.

Gee has always objected to the ‘novelists’ disease’ of theorising and generalising, so it is refreshing that the first impression of each of his novels is always the immediate impact and power of his storytelling. The opening pages grip at once and the reader is carried into the story as though seized by Jimmy Jaspers. 

 Gee has always argued that his children’s novels are tales of chase and escape, ‘what happens next?’ stories. This is the bait dangling on the first page, often in the first sentence:

‘One afternoon on a farm outside a small town in the King Country two children wandered into the bush and were lost.’

“The Jessop fire-raiser had been quiet for almost three months.”

“’Shall we go then?’ Susan asked”

“What do you answer when people ask ‘Who was the most important person you’ve ever known?’”

‘Ailsa set out at mid-morning.’

“The Whips, as silent as hunting cats, surrounded Blood Burrow in the hour before sun-up and began their sweep as the morning dogs began to howl.’

 Another striking feature of Gee’s writing is the vividness of his descriptions. His landscapes conjure up the brooding Rangitoto or the suburban bleakness of the Hutt Valley. In the opening pages of The Half Men of O, the descriptions of the Ferris farm near Collingwood are vivid. ‘The water chattered by. A fantail dived about him, chirping in a friendly way. The drumming of cicadas filled the air. ’ This is a world any New Zealand child can recognise.

It is also a striking contrast to Susan’s first impression of O as ‘a huge grey cloudless sky, grey land, grey hills rolling endlessly down until they were lost in a haze, ashy stunted trees, twisted unnaturally, grass the colour of tin.’

Later, as colour is returned to her, Susan is exultant, ‘The trees were like green and golden cities. Bright birds fluttered in their upper levels.’ They might be on another planet but the language used at this moment of epiphany is revealing; Susan sees ‘berries bright as lipstick’ while Nick, a prosaic Kiwi lad, simply says, ‘Better than colour TV.’

 Gee’s mastery of words is also shown in the convincing names used in the O trilogy, like Bloodcat, Paingiver, Darkland, Deathguard and the Lord Dark Soul. The names are splendid too. Otis Claw: ‘The name had a dreadful sound. It scraped across their minds like a rusty knife.’ When Odo Cling recites his title as, “I am a Great One. I am Executive Officer. I am Doer of Deeds for the One Who Rules, Otis Claw, Darksoul, Ruler of O, where pain is truth,” he has also pretty much summarised the trilogy.

Names are something Gee gives a lot of thought to. He recently revealed [NZ Listener 24 May 2008, pp 39-41] that the symbiotic Wilberforces, the creatures in Under the Mountain, who seek to convert Earth into a ball of mud, have a name which combines ‘will’ and ‘force’. In The World Around the Corner the beings who come from a world of factories and smoke are the Grimbles, evocative of ‘grim’ and ‘grumble’. It is no surprise that, at 16, Gee read Oliver Twist and became a life-long Dickens reader, rather like Ossie in Orchard Street.

 In his historical novels, many features of Gee’s own childhood and family background are told and retold, adapted and developed, in the same way that happens at family gatherings. The emotional power is heightened when, for example, Colin Potter’s father in The Fat Man has to sell his silver boxing trophies, an echo of Gee’s own father’s grim experiences in the Depression of the 1930s. Gee has often spoken of finding his mother late at night ‘sitting in a chair with her feet in the oven to get the last warmth from the stove, writing a poem or a story in an exercise book.’

 Ossie’s mother in Orchard Street and Rex’s mother in The Champion both honour this maternal literary heritage. “As Mum’s poem said, Kettle Creek had its feet in the mud and its head in the hills.” [– The Champion, p.18.] The kitchen is the still centre at the heart of several of Gee’s novels.

 The Fat Man is Gee’s masterwork, a brilliant and sometimes subtle study of a young boy’s realisation of the injustices of the adult world which, like The Fire-Raiser and The Champion, reworks aspects of Gee’s own family history. It combines vivid storytelling and strong characters with an acute understanding of human nature.

 On two occasions Gee has felt moved to continue and develop his young people’s novels into adult novels. The Fire-Raiser (1986) led to Prowlers where Gee satisfied his curiosity about what became of the Jessop children. (The title is appropriate because once again Gee has characters prowling in the night and watching others).  Hostel Girl, a vivid account of an obsessive stalker, set in the Hutt Valley during the juvenile delinquency panic of the 1950s, led to Ellie and the Shadow Man, in which Ellie grows up and spends some interesting years married to an irritating novelist who is recognisably and wittily based on Gee himself. Thus Gee becomes a literary Tane, making his own creation into his lover. (Gee’s description of the novelist’s almost physical pain at having a train of thought interrupted is one that every writer recognises.)

 Agnes Nieuwenhuizen, the Australian writer, was impressed hearing Gee talk about once walking by Henderson Creek with his mother and brothers, and encountering ‘a naked man (what we would call a swagman) washing in the creek…What Gee recalls is his eyes locking with the man’s intense black stare. That was enough to get started.’ - Magpies, March 1997, NZ Supplement, page 5.

 Almost every Gee novel has a creek flowing through it - ‘the stream one follows, with a new world opening up at every turning’ as Gee puts it – but none has the disturbing impact of its first appearance in The Half Men of O. Nick goes up Lodestone Creek and encounters Jimmy Jaspers, the rambunctious, ugly old rascal, who dominates the O trilogy, prospecting for gold in the creekbed. “The old man came at him, churning up water with his boots. ‘You been spying’ on me?’ He put out a hand as large as a dinner plate, tough and brown as boot-leather, and held Nick by his jaw.”

This hostile encounter with the old man who exudes ‘the menace one felt in a wild boar.’ is a precursor of the sinister encounter in the stream between Colin Potter and Herbert Muskie in The Fat Man.

 Jimm Jaspers is one of Gee’s most memorable characters, vile and untrustworthy, violent and foul-mouthed but gradually shamed into helping Nick and Susan and finally redeeming himself. He is also an intriguing symbol of old New Zealand, a gold miner, a battler, an axeman, a butcher and a blacksmith, able to turn his hand to anything, even the naming of features in other people’s worlds. He even becomes the Kiwi Horatio at the bridge.

 Gee cheerfully admits that he killed Jimmy off in the first draft but was persuaded by his daughters to keep him alive. “They screamed in unison, ‘No, no. You can’t kill Jimmy.’” Justifying his reprieve, Jimmy went on to become a key figure in the O trilogy. Gee may also have been influenced in this by his second thoughts over the death of Ricky in Under the Mountain, which had worried many readers. Some wrote to him. ‘My wife told me to change it but I wouldn’t listen,’ said Gee in his 2002 Margaret Mahy Medal speech. ‘Why does Ricky have to die? There was no answer except that the author decided that it was lesson time…If I were writing Under the Mountain today, I’d save Ricky.’

The Fat Man, an alarming account of the sins of the fathers returning to haunt their children, proved more controversial. Some critics were determined to be offended by Colin’s sinister encounter with Muskie in the stream, complaining about Gee’s similes: water flowing ‘like a horse peeing’ and Muskie’s hair ‘plastered to his chest like slime.’ Gee was even accused of writing ‘the sort of book that robbed children of their childhood.’ (This spat was ended for ever when a gleeful Joy Cowley introduced a peeing Clydesdale flooding a kitchen in her Shadrach trilogy.) 

 Fewer critics noticed The Fat Man’s sophisticated narrative technique or the brilliant conclusion where Gee is so confident of his young readers’ understanding of Colin’s motivation that he lets them become part of the storytelling process. ‘Verna is the only one who knows why Colin ran with the fat man in the end, and cut the rope.’ Verna, and the readers.

 It is intriguing that Gee’s fantasies have their base firmly set in real places with real names like Auckland and Collingwood. The historical novels use false names like Loomis and Kettle Creek but these simply give Gee the freedom to bring the past to life and mould his plot without becoming bogged down in minute detail. Ironically the only serious criticism of the accuracy of his historic novels proved to be an own goal, a boomerang.

 In The Fire-Raiser (1986) which is set in 1915, Mrs Bolton has the Jessop school pupils present a patriotic pageant, with the children representing the warring nations. “O Britannia, Britannia. Pity our distress. The imperious Kaiser marches his German horde across our plains to carry death.”

Some scholars used this pageant’s depiction of plucky New Zealand (‘Furthest flung of your Empire we may be, but our character and customs are your own. We are the Britain of the South.’) to draw deep conclusions about Gee’s colonial attitudes. Then they were reminded that Gee hadn’t invented the pageant; he found the script in the library of Nelson Central School while he was writing its history. The racial and national prejudices displayed were genuinely those of the period.

Gee’s own contribution was the awful Mrs Bolton who says, when casting, ‘ New Zealand. We need a big strong boy with shoulders back and nice clean teeth. Not you, Wipaki, someone white.’

 In the novel the pageant helps inspire some of the townsfolk to persecute a gentle German music teacher by burning her German piano. This is one reaction to the raw feelings aroused by the losses of the war. A balancing voice is provided by the talented school teacher ‘Clippy’ Hedges; of Irish stock, he is another of the many outsiders who populate Gee’s novels. More raffish examples include the book-makers and black market traders who pop up in The Champion and Orchard Street, fully involved in the community but slightly set apart.

 The Champion, an account of the wartime excitement created by visiting US servicemen, and Orchard Street, set against the 1951 Wharf Lockout, are both are set in Loomis, a close relation of Henderson, where Gee grew up.  ‘Creek and kitchen are the poles that I moved between for most of my childhood.’ It is the creek which dominates Rex’s world in The Champion while Ossie leaves the refuge of his mother’s kitchen to prowl the backyards of Orchard Street. ‘I scuttled through the light and into the dark and slid along hearing doors open and dogs bark and bits of conversation from lighted rooms.’

In his novels Gee shows his flair for making even the smallest character memorable. Who can forget Orchard Street’s Constable Porteous, who kindly advises Ossie’s mother to bury anything incriminating before he contacts his sergeant, or Mr Redknapp, the old amateur astronomer, or Mr Worley who passes on his beloved set of Dickens to Ossie?

 Gee’s sharp eye for detail and his ability to choose just the right word is always evident. In The Fire-Raiser the livery stable has a loft where ‘a fringe of hay hung down like a beard below a mouth.’ We are seeing it through the eyes of an arsonist who lights a match and ‘thrust it like a gift into the hay.’

Gee’s powers of description of scenes and moods is unparalleled. The re-issuing this year of an almost forgotten Gee gem, The World Around the Corner, has enabled a new generation to join Caroline in looking through the wondrous spectacles. “Everything was brighter. Everything had a sharp clean edge…She had found herself a pair of magic glasses. They showed more than the eye could ever see.”

Gee’s descriptive writing can transform the most mundane scene. ‘The washing machines were as white as snow, the kapok in the burst mattresses looked like whipped cream, the flowers patterned on the cloth of the sofa…suddenly looked as if they were in a garden. The hoses coiled in the corner were bright orange worms; the wardrobes tall buildings in the sun; the mirrors fairy pools.’ When she meets the scheming Mr Grimble, Caroline is not surprised to see that his eyes ‘glow like burning coals. They were the colour of blood.’

 Writing in the Oxford History of NZ Literature, Betty Gilderdale says that fantasy is a genre which ‘connects deeply at the children’s level with often unarticulated wishes, hopes fears and needs.’ This certainly describes Gee’s novels. In the O trilogy both sides gain the power to destroy each other, in an echo of  the Cold War, while in The World Around the Corner the Grimbles’ creation of walled cities of ‘smoke and poison and darkness’ also sound s familiar. ‘They have cut down all the trees, levelled the hills, dammed up all the rivers.’

 In The Priests of Ferris, Susan returns to O to find that a brutal religion has been set up in her name, with propaganda and social pressure enforcing the vicious rule of the priests. This came as no surprise to those aware of Gee’s family history. Many of his relatives have played an important part in the nation’s spiritual and philosophical debates, something he also explored in his Plumb trilogy.

Salt, Gee’s grim but brilliant fable of a future dystopia, can be seen as a caustic response to the trickle-down economy. The Company’s slave system reflects the colonial exploitation of the Congo and the Amazon, but it can also be read as an exciting adventure. In fact, all of Gee’s novels are multi-levelled, offering both an exciting story and what Gee describes as ‘something to chew on’. [Gee Radio NZ National, May, 2008] 

 Agnes Nieuwenhuizen was enthralled by Gee’s casual aside that, ‘I don’t think Tolkien has a proper sense of evil.’ It was Charles Dickens that Gee credits with widening his view of human nature on both the dark and light sides. ‘He put me in a moral universe. He taught me about good and evil. He broadened my sympathies and enlarged my understanding.’ Jimmy Jaspers and Hubert Muskie may be capable of villainy but they are also capable of redemption.

Although Gee’s writing often produces a conflict between good and evil it also, as Bill Nagelkerk has pointed out, ‘contains a measure of moral ambiguity and uncertainty.’ - Magpies 12:4, Sep 1997, NZ Supplement, p.8.  Nagelkerke points to the different attitudes of the twins, Rachel and Theo, in Under the Mountain. When faced with the deaths of the menacing slug-like Wilberforces, practical Theo wonders how it is to be done. ‘Where were the rules?’ Rachel sees more complex ethical issues. ‘The Wilberforces were the last of their kind. It was a crime.’

 In the same way, when Xantee faces the implacably hostile gool-mother in the dramatic conclusion of Gool, the emotion she feels is an unexpected and powerful one - pity. ‘She knew then that pity had been a weapon. Where Duro’s knife had failed, and flame and poison and spears would fail, pity had pierced the gool and made it shriek. She had killed this creature…Killed it without meaning to, by striking pity into it like a knife.’

Since Gee retired to his beloved Nelson, he has published two more young novels, written one adult novel and collected the NZ Post Best Book Award for Salt. Some retirement. Perhaps storytellers never retire. At the end of The World Around the Corner, when Caroline has made it possible for Moon-girl to defeat the dragon, the Grimbles have been vanquished and all is well in both worlds, she takes her friend Emily into their secret hiding-place in the loft of the auction rooms. 

“‘Listen,’ Caroline said. She had a wonderful story for her friend.” 

Telling the story makes it true.

 Maurice Gee is still telling wonderful stories.

 - Trevor Agnew (2008)

 

 

 

THE  MAGNIFICENT  TWELVE

Under the Mountain (1979)

The World Around the Corner (1980)

The Half Men of O (1982)

The Priests of Ferris (1984)

Motherstone (1985)

The Fire-Raiser (1986)

The Champion (1989)

The Fat Man (1994)

Orchard Street (1998)

Hostel Girl (1999)

Salt (2007)

Gool (2008)

Note: This article was written in 2008. Maurice Gee later published The Limping Man (2010) and The Severed Land (2017) thus completing the Salt saga. It also gives Maurice Gee a ‘Fabulous Fourteen'. 

See below for the reviews of the last two novels.

AWARDS:

1983: NZGP Award: Children’s Book of the Year: The Halfmen of O.

1986: Esther Glen Award: Motherstone.

1993: Gee refuses a knighthood.

1995: Esther Glen Award: The Fat Man.

1995: AIM Children’s Book Awards: Supreme Award: The Fat Man.

2002: Margaret Mahy Lecture Award

2004 Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Merit

2004: Gaelyn Gordon Award for Much-loved Book: Under the Mountain

2008: NZ Post Book Awards: Salt

 

SOURCES:

Maurice Gee, “Creeks and Kitchens.” [Margaret Mahy Lecture, 2002] The Inside Story: Storylines Children’s Literature Foundation of New Zealand Year Book, 2002. Auckland: Storylines, 2002 pages 9-25.

Bill Nagelkerke,  “Welcome Re-issues.” Magpies NZ Supplement 12:4 (Sep 1997): 8.

Agnes Nieuwenhuizen,  “Know the Author: Maurice Gee: Creek, kitchen and the art of language.” Magpies NZ Supplement 12:1 (Mar 1997): pages 4-6.

 

INTERNET  SITES:

Christchurch City Libraries site:

http://library.christchurch.org.nz/Kids/ChildrensAuthors/MauriceGee.asp

New Zealand Book Council site:

http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writers/geem.html

University of Auckland Library information file: Maurice Gee:

http://www.library.auckland.ac.nz/subjects/nzp/nzlit2/gee.htm

 

FURTHER  READING:

Tom Fitzgibbon & Barbara Spiers,  Beneath Southern Skies: New Zealand Children’s Book Authors & Illustrators. Auckland: Ashton Scholastic, 1993. pages 67-9.

Maurice Gee,  “Creeks and Kitchens.” The Inside Story: Storylines Children’s Literature Foundation of New Zealand Year Book, 2002. Auckland: Storylines, 2002 pages 9-25.

David Hill, Introducing Maurice Gee. Auckland: Longman Paul, 1981.

Larsen, David,  “So much for Retirement.” NZ Listener, 24 May 2008, pages 38-41.

Bill Manhire,  Maurice Gee. Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Bill Nagelkerke,  “Welcome Re-issues.” Magpies NZ Supplement 12:4 (Sep 1997): 8.

Agnes Nieuwenhuizen,  “Know the Author: Maurice Gee: Creek, kitchen and the art of language.” Magpies NZ Supplement 12:1 (Mar 1997): pages 4-6.

The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature. ed. Roger Robinson and Nelson Wattie. Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1998. pages 197-9.

 

 **************************************************************************************       

The Limping Man & The Severed Land

The Limping Man, Maurice Gee 

Penguin NZ, Auckland, NZ, 2010

Series: Salt 3

Maurice Gee’s dystopian Salt saga is not for the faint-hearted.

In The Limping Man, the third novel in the series, following Salt (2007) and Gool (2008),  another despot has established his iron control over the ruined remnants of the city of Belong. The eponymous Limping Man has established mental control over his subjects, so that he can have those who threaten him exterminated. Leaving her dead mother behind, young Hana flees to the wilderness. There she learns two things: she has strong mental powers and the legendary figures of Hari and Pearl are real people.
Along with twins Blossom and Hubert (children of Hari and Pearl), Hana seeks the secret of how the Limping Man rose to power. His armies are poised to slaughter all free humans, as well as the mysterious Dwellers, unless they can locate a secret in the swamps. The result is an exciting conflict with a nail-bitingly tense final battle of wills.
As changes take place in the mental powers of the characters in this series of novels, it is noticeable that the people are gaining a closer relationship with the creatures. Eels play their part, Hana has a mental link with a hawk, and the limping ruler’s only friend is a toad. In the wilderness, insects have evolved their behaviour in an unexpected way which is directly linked to the surprising conclusion of The Limping Man.
Nor is the series complete. A sequel is hinted at.

Trevor Agnew

2010

 

The Severed Land, Maurice Gee

Puffin/Penguin, Auckland, NZ, 2017

Series: Salt 4

’From high in the branches Fliss watched slaves dig trenches where the wheels of the cannon would rest.’
The Severed Land is set in a dystopian world, a later age of the grim society we encountered in Maurice Gee’s Salt, Gool and The Limping Man. The mysterious ‘People’ of that trilogy also extend their influence into this novel.
Young Fliss had first arrived in the north as a starving refugee, and found it protected by an invisible, seemingly impenetrable barrier, which allowed her to pass through safely. Fliss now tends the frail Old One, ’the last of the People,’ whose strong mental powers provide guidance and are also linked to the barrier.
To the south of the barrier is the grim slave state of Rule, where powerful families strive to hold the Stewardship. Their wealth is based on slavery. Children work in the factories and cotton mills, women tap gum in the plantations and men die in the mines.
The armies of the south regularly attack the wall but always in vain. No matter how large the cannon, its explosive charge is simply reflected back. In the confusion following the latest disastrous failure, a drummer boy tries to escape the slave army and is trapped against the wall. Fliss motivated by anger against the murderous officer rather than pity for his victim, uses her ability to reach through the invisible barrier and drags the boy through.
’Fliss looked down at him and did not like him… Fliss felt like pushing him back.’
While they wait for the boy to recover from his ordeal, the Old One delivers an enigmatic message to Fliss, ’He will do.’
And so begins the odd relationship between the imperious Kirt Despiner, a disgraced aristocrat, and Fliss, the ex-slave, whom Kirt regards as less than human. The pair are sent off on a mission by the Old One to rescue Kirt’s twin sister, Lorna, from imprisonment in the southern city of Galp. (Lorna, despised as a blind, limping hunchback, has strong mental powers and ‘talks’ with the old one.)

Their hundred-league journey is full of danger and forces Kirt and Fliss to recognise each other’s strengths and talents.
Can they survive in the dangerous back-streets of Galp? Can Kirt conceal his identity? Can Fliss protect him? And how are they to rescue Lorna?
Lorna’s powers are surprising and Fliss is resourceful. But Kirt is too emotionally involved to act circumspectly and he is soon a prisoner with Lorna, waiting for the gallows.
Fliss soon finds she is involved in an enterprise that may change the world.

Maurice Gee is skilful with his narrative, and the characters are sharply drawn and complex. The situations they find themselves in are sometimes bleak and violent. As always in Gee’s novels, there is a strong moral undertone and young readers may find themselves considering parallels with our own world.

There is even the chopping-down of a flagpole to think about.
Trevor Agnew
1 Dec 2016

 

 

David Elliot’s “The Wind Between the Pages” Exhibition

 David Elliot’s “The Wind Between the Pages” Exhibition

A Review by Trevor Agnew

Now on at the Dunedin Public Library, until 27 October 2024

It was ironic that the storm which devastated parts of Dunedin began as we arrived in the city. Falling rain and bitterly cold winds continued for the two days we were there. 

A delightful highlight was a visit to David Elliot’s exhibition now on at the Dunedin Public Library. It celebrates the wind and weather (and strange creatures) of literature. There could be no doubt about the nature of the storms that David Elliot celebrates in his work; we got out of Dunedin a few hours before floods and slips blocked State Highway 1.

I have pasted a few samples from the exhibition to persuade you to go and see it. If you can’t make it to Dunedin, the superbly efficient Dunedin Public Library have set up a website that allows you to browse all twenty cases. 

Check out The wind between the Pages exhibition at the Reed Gallery, 3rd floor, Dunedin City Library until 27th October 2024

Or you can now view online: The Wind between the Pages: Book Art by David Elliot - August 2024, Reed Gallery - Dunedin Public Libraries Official Website

 

‘The Tempest’ – 3D Book Illustration, by David Elliot.

 

Winds and Monsters

 

Grip the Raven

 

As one raised in Sawyers Bay and Port Chalmers, I recognise the geographical features these winds are buffeting in David’s illustration.  Harbour Cone, Quarantine Island, Goat Island and Back Beach are all hinted at here:

 

 

 

 

 

The Wind Between the Pages exhibition now online!

By Ōtepoti He Puna Auaha | Dunedin UNESCO City Of Literature | Posted: Wednesday Sep 25, 2024

If you're unable to visit this stunning and memorable exhibition in person, it can now be viewed online!

Award-winning illustrator and writer, David Elliot, has delved into the art of 3D drawing!

Check out The wind between the Pages exhibition at the Reed Gallery, 3rd floor, Dunedin City Library until 27th October 2024

Or you can now view online: The Wind between the Pages: Book Art by David Elliot - August 2024, Reed Gallery - Dunedin Public Libraries Official Website

Books about Matariki

 

thursday 23 june 2022

Books about Matariki

15 books about Matariki

Chosen and described by Trevor Agnew, 24th June 2022

1. Matariki, Melanie Drewery, Bruce Potter (ill) Reed (2003) Puffin (2016) 

The whole family go down to the beach for a bonfire before dawn. They cook kumara (sweet potato) and wait for the Matariki star-cluster to rise over the horizon. Nanny tells the children several stories and legends of Matariki. ’Some people say that Matariki is made up 

of the seven houses of the gods, 

and that people’s spirits go there when they die’ said Nanny, wiping tears from her face. They eat their kumara and bread by the fire on the first morning of the Maori New Year.

This is a good story for showing celebrations within different cultures. The children ask their mother which of the many Matariki legends they should believe. ‘Well,’ said Mum, ‘Think of the story that feels right in your heart. That is the story for you.’

Bruce Potter’s pictures of the stars and the family on the beach are dramatic.

Note: Matariki is also known as the Pleaides, a small cluster of stars. From a New Zealand viewpoint, Matariki vanishes in the east about mid-April, then reappears about the end of May or later, above the north-east horizon, before dawn. The return of Matariki marks the beginning of the Maori New Year. Traditionally the Maori counted seven stars, sometimes described as Matariki and her six daughters. The smell of the food prepared by the watching people was said to revive Matariki, who was weak and hungry after her journey in the darkness.



2. Celebrating Matariki Libby Hakaria, Reed (2006)

This splendidly readable book uses the Matariki constellation as a framework for a range of information about the stars, Maori seasons, fishing, hunting, gardening and legends.

Matariki, known to the Greeks as the Pleiades, marks the beginning

 of the Maori year, when it rises above the horizon in early June. Traditionally the first full moon after the rising of Matariki was a time for feasts and celebrations and the hunting and preserving of birds. A wide range of activities, including telescope-making, kite-flying and cooking are included. (The recipe for Kumara Chowder is excellent.) The book’s design is attractive, with clear double-page spreads, and good use of colour and fact-boxes. The text is well laid-out and very readable.

In a nice touch, the Japanese name for Matariki, Subaru, is noted with a picture of a New Zealand rally team in their Subaru. Several songs about Matariki are included in an accompanying CD, and the lyrics are printed in the book in both English and Maori.

This book fills a gap in libraries and schools, providing background material for fictional books on Matariki. At the same time Celebrating Matariki is so attractively presented that it can be read for simple enjoyment.



3. Glow Worm Night Don Long, Tracy Duncan (ill.) Reed (2004)

This book is about a family observing the Maori traditional New Year, marked by the first appearance of the group of stars, Matariki. A young girl tells how she goes with her father and brother into the nearby bush late at night. They switch off their torches and look at the stars. 

Dad points out Matariki the Pleaides).

After that, everyone looks for glow-worms. 

Then, there they are – glowing along the stream. Glow-worms! Puratoke. They see some nocturnal creatures, such as the morepork (native owl) and freshwater crayfish. 
Later Mum gives everyone Milo and tucks them into bed. ‘Sweet glow-worm dreams,’ she whispers as she switches off the light.
As Tracy Duncan’s handsome colour illustrations make clear, Dad is Maori and Mum is Pakeha (non-Maori). Some of the dialogue is in Maori, as when Dad says, Tino makariri before everyone puts coats on to keep out the cold (makariri). The context and the illustrations always make the meaning clear to non-Maori speakers.
Tracy Duncan’s illustrations always reward careful study. There are creatures, such as the Puriri moth to be spotted in the bush scenes, and books in the house. The young girl is reading Taniwha, by Robyn Kahukiwa.

Note: Matariki, also known as the Pleaides, is a small cluster of stars. From a New Zealand viewpoint, Matariki vanishes in the east about mid-April, and then reappears about the end of May or in June, above the north-east horizon, before dawn. The return of Matariki marks the beginning of the Maori New Year. Traditionally the Maori counted seven stars, sometimes described as Matariki and her six daughters.



4. Scoop and Scribe Search for the Seven Stars of Matariki  
Tommy Kapai Wilson,  Rob Turvey (ill)  Random House (2009)

Tommy Kapai Wilson was a newspaper columnist and children’s author who, in 2008, wrote a children’s action serial for the NiE (Newspapers in Education) newspaper educational supplement. It was revised and reprinted as a book in 2009. Scoop and Scribe search for the Seven Stars of Matariki is slim on characterisation but is certainly a fast-moving fantasy adventure. 

After a tip-off by a mysterious tohunga named Koro Whetu, ace junior reporters 

Scoop and Scribe are commissioned to seek the seven lost stars which form the constellation Matariki (also known as the Pleiades or Subaru).

Whetu guides the intrepid news-crew as they travel around New Zealand collecting the stars, which have been stolen by a kea (mountain parrot). A prominent local feature plays an important part in each chapter, so that the stolen statue of Pania of the Reef is recovered in Tauranga, while at Katikati, Donald Paterson’s sculpture Barry, (the only NZ statue to feature a newspaper) assists in the search.
With its many Maori characters and references, the story is accompanied by a Maori-English glossary and some factual material about Matariki and the Maori New Year.

Rob Turvey’s colour illustrations help make this an attractive presentation of a light-hearted fantasy quest, with an appeal for young male readers.



5. The Seven Stars of Matariki Toni Rolleston-Cummins Nikki Slade-Robinson (ill.) Huia (2008)

The Maori New Year is traditionally marked by the rising of the star cluster Matariki (also known as Subaru and the Pleiades). There are many Maori legends about Matariki.
This picture book retells a Maori tradition of Matariki’s origins, from the Bay of Plenty region of the North Island, and introduces some associated customs and rituals.

Mitai, who lived at Maketu (near modern Whakatane) had the power

 to change himself into a bird.

When his seven elder brothers were entranced by seven beautiful golden-haired women, they ignored Mitai’s warning that the seven women were really patuparaeihe (fairy folk).
Mitai overheard these women (who could turn themselves into fantails) plotting to starve their new husbands to death. He persuaded his brothers – now gaunt with hunger – to weave nets so they could capture their seven murderous wives while they were still in fantail form. Then Mitai flew up and handed the captive fairies over to Urutengangana, god of the stars, who placed them far from Earth. Once a year, the god allows their golden beauty to shine out. So at each winter solstice, the seven stars of Matariki appear above the horizon.



6. Little Kiwi’s Matariki 

Nikki Slade Robinson (text and ill) Duck Creek Press (2016)

The little Kiwi and her friends discover the joy of Matariki in this charming picture book. A beam of moonlight wakens little kiwi. The tiny kiwi realises the time has come and runs through the bush in the darkness. One by one, she wakens her sleeping friends and tells them to come and see something exciting. ‘Can you feel it coming?’

Before long she has a procession of creatures (including 

katipo spider, tui, weka and a family of ruru (owls)) trailing
behind her. Young readers will enjoy the parallel to Chicken-Licken.
Finally they all arrive at the beach and stand in the moonlight, as Matariki rises. They celebrate the New Year in the traditional Maori ways. For example, the katipo weaves a silken kite and flies it as part of the fun and games.
‘Matariki?’ said Tui, ‘Time for music and dance!’ He sang to the stars.
The author’s illustrations are stylised and streamlined representations of New Zealand plants and birds. They are also witty. The tiny owlets are all eyes and the weka (woodhen) is a speedster.

Little Kiwi’s Matariki also includes an explanation of Matariki – it's origins, traditions and how it is celebrated today. The constellation is shown, with the Māori names for each star. The story also offers what Nikki Slade Robinson describes as ‘a gentle introduction to te reo within the English text.’

Winner Best Picture Book of 2016 in the New Zealand Book Awards for Children.

Shayne's reading of Little Kiwi’s Matariki is available on YouTube  



7. The Seven Kites Of Matariki  Calico McClintock, Dominique Ford (ill.) Scholastic (2016)

The Seven Kites of Matariki is a modern tale about Matariki. It explains why the star cluster known as Matariki can be seen in an early morning winter sky, low on the eastern horizon.

In a Maori village, seven sisters are making kites to celebrate the arrival of the new year, just as their mothers and grandmothers had before them.
Each girl makes a different kite using local materials; 

the youngest sister, Ururangi makes ‘a many-

coloured kite with eyes of paua shell’.
The seven girls climb a hill to fly their kites and argue with each other about whose kite will fly highest.
‘My kite is the best.’
Unfortuately there is no wind on the hilltop and so the seven girls wrap themselves in their cloaks and wait beneath a giant puriri tree. Exhausted, they soon fall asleep. When the wind blows from the east, crying ‘Wake up. Wake up’ they don’t hear it. But their kites lift up in the wind, which carries them fluttering up into the sky.

Much later, Ururangi wakes up, sees her kite gone and awakens her sisters to tell them of their loss. Her six sisters look out into the morning sky and see their six kites flying there like the new year stars. The six head back to the village for kai (food).
Ururangi remains behind searching the skies for her kite. She is rewarded by being the first to see the seven stars of Matariki appear.

Dominique Ford’s beautiful illustrations capture the symbolism of the story well. Each kite is based on a traditional design and the colours are matched to the appropriate plants and shells used in making them.

Note: Ururangi is the Matariki star traditionally associated with the wind.

Shayne's reading of The Seven Kites of Matariki is on YouTube.



8. Tawhirimatea: A Song for Matariki June Pitman-Hayes, Kay Merewether (ill.) Scholastic (2017)

''Tāwhirimātea, blow winds, blow.’
This picture book (which doubles as a song book) shows the world through the eyes of a Maori family. As they gather shellfish, plant a tree, and have a family picnic, their words are reminders of the importance of the natural world about them. The seasons pass by, until the rising of the stars of Matariki signal the beginning of a new year.
‘Our universe is an amazing nature show.’

The second part of the book consists of the same lyrics, this time in Maori. 

‘Now, let’s sing it in Maori.’ 

The Maori words are by Ngaere Roberts.
‘Ko te ao nui, he Whakaari, miharo.’

The watercolour illustrations by Kat Merewether perform a double service. They show the family along with the birds, fish and plants in their natural surroundings but they also illustrate the traditional Maori pantheon of supernatural beings. Tāwhirimātea is the god of the winds, and his face appears, cheeks puffed, among the clouds, while Ra provides the sunshine and Ua the rain.

Each picture has its secret for young readers to spot.

On an accompanying CD, both versions of the song are performed by June Pitman-Hayes with her own ukulele accompaniment. There is also an instrumental track for young vocalists to sing along to.



9. Stolen Stars of Matariki Miriama Kamo, Zac Waipara (ill.) Scholastic (2018)

Stolen Stars of Matariki is a splendid picture book bringing some of the Māori traditions associated with Matariki into a 21st Century context.
Young Te Rerehua and Sam are visiting their grandparents at one of Canterbury’s important Maori traditional sites, Te Mata Hapuku (Birdlings Flat), a massive shingle spit and traditional eeling site. It is “a magical wild, windy place,” where they can gather agates on the beach. While Poua (grandfather) is gaffing eels at night, the children lie on the shingle with Grandma, looking up at the stars. One night Grandma spots something strange; there are two stars missing from the Matariki cluster. The patupaiarehe (fairy folk) have been stealing stars again. 

Their plan is to hide the stars beneath the

shingle, to be smashed to pieces, so they can wear the fragments on their clothing.
Using Grandma’s knowledge (and Poua’s gaff) Te Rerehua and Sam manage to infiltrate and outwit the mischievous patupaiarehe, and restore the kidnapped stars to their rightful place in the heavens.
Miriama Kamo has written a beautifully-styled story which has the simplicity and power of traditional folk tales.

Zak Waipara has produced magnificently atmospheric illustrations, with richly patterned and coloured backgrounds. He has successfully achieved the difficult task of mixing human and supernatural characters, as well as the technically difficult feat of portraying night-time activities. The result is a handsome and appealing picture book.

Stolen Stars of Matariki now joins a select mini-library of celebrations of Matariki.
These include Matariki (2003), Glow-Worm Night (2004), The Seven Stars of Matariki (2008), and Tawhirimatea: A Song for Matariki (2017).

In 2018 Scholastic also published a Maori language edition, Nga Whetu Matariki Whanakotia, with the Maori translation by Ngaere Roberts. 

Note: The rising above the N.E. horizon (in May-June) of the star cluster Matariki marks the Maori New Year. While it is common to count seven stars forming the cluster known as Matariki (or Subaru or Pleaides) some Maori identify nine. Their names are Matariki, Pōhutukawa, Waitī, Waitā, Waipuna-ā-rangi, Tupuānuku, Tupuārangi, Ururangi, and Hiwa-i-te-rangi. - info from Christchurch Library Website: The Nine Stars of Matariki

During the 2020 Covid-19 Lockdown, musicians from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra provided a musical background, as Miriama Kamo read The Stolen stars of Matariki aloud. The composer of the original music is Claire Cowan.
Website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWWcM0BWwwc

10. Together in Love: a Legend of Matariki  Xoë Hall (text & ill.) Teacher Talk (2018)

This picture book is a brief retelling of the Māori creation legend telling how the children of the gods Ranginui and Papatūānuku force them apart to let in the light and allow the world to flourish. Tāwhirimātea, god of the wind, angered by this action of his sibling gods, tears out his lightning-bolt eyes and throws them up into the sky. They explode to become 

the star cluster of the Matariki constellation, which 

is now the harbinger of the Māori New Year.

 

When Māori come together at new year, to celebrate, they tell this story to their children as their parents did before them.

Xoë Hall’s simple retelling is nicely matched by her colour illustrations. She uses bright colours and traditional Maori designs to make the various gods distinctive figures.

Shayne’s reading of Together in Love is available on YouTube:



11. Twinkle, Twinkle, Matariki Rebecca Larsen (text and ill.) Imagination Press (2019)
Whistle like the windy sky,
Sprinkle showers passing by.

This charming picture book is both simple and useful. Within an over-arching story format of three native birds (Hoiho, Pukeko and Kiwi) touring outer space in a rocket, it presents a series of simple songs (with a familiar tune) about such things as our food, how it is grown, the seasons, the weather,

and of course the stars that act as markers.

Rub your puku round and round
Food we’ve grown, caught or found.

Bright colourful illustrations by the author match the simple songs, which are provided in both Maori and English. Particularly pleasing is the spaceship which is decorated with Maori motifs, an inspiration for young kiwi astronauts.
A pictorial Glossary ensures that all is explained.
These songs scan well and provide young people with useful vocabulary. The words are provided in both English and Maori. (Translators: Tania Solomon, Justin Kereama).

A bonus CD has the songs sung in both English and Maori by Paul Inia. (Music by Richard Larsen.)

Twinkle, Twinkle, Matariki is the perfect book for a kindergarten or kura kaupapa sing-along in English or Te Reo.



12. The Promise of Puanga: A Story for Matariki  Kirsty Wadsworth,  Munro Te Whata (ill), Scholastic (2019)

‘Hana and Puanga did everything together.’
The Promise of Puanga is a picture book about two friends, and the fun they have together, watching new-born animals in spring, swimming in summer and riding their bikes through the leaves in autumn.
A problem in their area is that winter comes without warning, killing the un-gathered crops. When Hana speaks to Puanga about this problem and the need for a warning about the approach of winter, she gets an astonishing confession.

                                                                                                                 

‘I’m really a star,’ Puanga explained.
She has left her Matariki cousins in order to ‘explore and go on adventures.’
Hana has never seen the stars of Matariki because of the nearby hills and mountains.
Puanga summons Tāwhirimātea, the guardian of the wind, to take her back up into the sky to be a guardian for Hana’s village.
Tāwhirimātea promises that when Hana sees Puanga shining brightly in the sky, she will know it is time for the people to gather their crops. ‘She is our own special sign,’ says Hana. And so it happens.

Munro Te Whata’s splendid illustrations convey the friendship of the two girls in several charming scenes. His portrayal of Tawhirimatea is equally skilful, bringing together the colour of the night sky, the shape of the nearby mountain and the suggestion of clouds as his hair and beard.
The result is a lovely modern story based on traditional Maori elements.

This picture book, The Promise of Puanga, fills an unusual gap. In recent years some half-dozen New Zealand picture books have been published with stories about the cluster of stars Matariki, the rising of which signals the coming of winter and marks the traditional Maori New Year. What none of these books has mentioned is that in some areas along our western coasts, mountainous terrain prevents sighting of these stars (also known as the Pleiades, Mao or Subaru). The Promise of Puanga tells in story form how this astronomical difficulty was solved for the Maori people living in these western areas by the rising of Puanga (also known as Rigel).

There are Teaching Notes for this book at: The Promise of Puanga

A diagram showing Matariki and Puanga is at: https://teara.govt.nz/en/diagram/14080/puanga

In 2019 Scholastic also published an identical Maori language edition, He Purakau Matariki, Te Ki Taurangi a Puanga.



13. Flit the Fantail and the Matariki Map  Kat Quinn (text and ill.)  Scholastic (2021)

This third picture book in the Flit the Fantail series is written and illustrated by Kat Quin (formerly Kat Mereweather).
We’re lost! Flit and Keri cry.
Lured by the moonlight and unable to sleep, Flit has left the safety of his nest and ventured down to the dark forest floor. Flit hopes to capture the moonlight (in order to illuminate his nest). Through the trees, he can see the star cluster known as Matariki.
Tahi, rua, toru, whā, rima, ono, whitu, waru, iwa, he counts.

                                                                                                       

Keri the young kiwi, out foraging, offers to help Flit in his quest. They struggle through the bush and scrub and climb up high but are still unable to reach the moon. The pair realise that they are lost. How can they find their way home?
Ruru the owl sees them huddled together and points to the stars above.
Sometimes those special stars can even guide us home.

Flit spots the cluster of nine stars he saw earlier above his home. He carefully pecks nine holes into a kawakawa leaf in the shape of Matariki. Then the two birds make their way home, using the leaf map to follow the Matariki stars. They reach home just before the sun rises. Flit then has a bright idea. Perhaps he can capture the sun and use it to light his nest at night?

The charming colour illustrations are by the author, Kat Quin.

An identical Maori language edition of Flit the Fantail and the Matariki Map was also published by Scholastic NZ in 2021, as Ko Flit te Tirairaka te Mahere Matariki.



14. Daniel’s Matariki Feast  Linley Wellington & Rebecca Beyer (text)
Christine Ross (ill)  Duck Creek Press. English ed (2014); Māori ed (2015) and combined English Māori and Chinese pinyin ed (2021).

On his first day at kindergarten, Daniel is shy.                                              

He is puzzled that they will be having a feast 

because of the stars. 

Then he listens to some of the other children 

telling stories of the Māori New Year.

At home Daniel tells his mother about the feast and she makes a spicy pumpkin soup using her late mother’s recipe. (This is a subtle reminder that Matariki is also a time for remembering those who have died.) Daniel has fun working in the garden with his new friends and afterwards he enjoys his Matariki feast.

Christine Ross’s illustrations really capture the world of small boys and also give a good idea of how to greet the Māori new year.


15. Matariki Around the World Rangi Matamua & Miriama Kamo
Isobel Joy Te Aho-White (ill.) 82 pages, hardback, Scholastic (2022)

The subtitle tells it all: A Cluster of Stars, A Cluster of Stories.
Miriama Kamo and Rangi Matamua have gathered stories from around the world that are linked to the distinctive group of stars known to Maori as Matariki. ‘All around the world, the star cluster has different names, different stories, different mahi (jobs), and even different numbers of stars.’ The result is the best book ever written about Matariki.    

The first part of Matariki Around the World describes the Māori traditional creation of the 

world and has handsome double-page descriptions of the Maori gods and the lunar calendar. There are similar double-page retellings of some Māori traditions concerning the attributes of each of the stars Matariki and her eight children (Pōhutukawa, Tipuānuku, Tipuārangi, Waiti, Waitā, Waipunarangi, Ururangi and Hiwa-i-te-rangi). For example Tipuānuku cares for food grown in the earth, and her brightness gives an indication of how kumara crops will fare in the year ahead.

‘Anā! Te paki o Matariki. Behold! The wonders of Matariki.’

The second part of the book offers some retellings of Matariki stories from other cultures around the world. Not only the well-known Pleiades (Greece) and Subaru (Japan) legends are offered but also a range of stories from Africa, Australia, China, India, Scandinavia and North and South America. All are fascinating but the most interesting are the ones from the Pacific, with the similarities and differences sympathetically examined.

The writing style of this book is remarkable. The text is well researched and culturally sensitive but it is also written in a relaxed and witty style. Here the authors are revealing the Viking name for Matariki: ‘So you would think they’d have a pretty tough-guy name for the Matariki cluster, wouldn’t you? Nope. They called it…ahem…Freya’s Hens. Hens? What? Are hens hardy, battle-scarred warriors?’ (We also learn that some Vikings preferred to think of Matariki as a ladybird because of the insect’s seven spots.) Either way, Freya was the goddess who cared for the spirits of dead warriors. ‘So Freya is pretty cool.’
Writing like this makes for enjoyable reading.

Each story is beautifully illustrated by Isobel Joy Te Aho-White.
Best of all, this handsomely designed book has an excellent index and glossary.
It is a picture book which every home should have.

Trevor Agnew  

24 June 2022

The first celebration of Matariki as a New Zealand public holiday.

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about me

Trevor Agnew

Trevor Agnew Freelance writer and researcher. * Reviews for Magpies magazine. * Writes NZ book entries for ‘The Source’ database of Australian and New Zealand Children’s Literature (www.magpies.net.au). * Researched young adult review listings for Hooked on NZ Books website (2015-19). * Co-author with Jenny Sew Hoy Agnew of 'Merchant Miner Mandarin: The Life and Times of the Remarkable Choie Sew Hoy' Canterbury University Press (2020). Biography of Otago Chinese merchant and gold-dredging pioneer. Awards: 1993: Nada Beardsley Literacy Award for services to Literacy (Canterbury Reading Association) 2013: Canon Media Awards: Reviewer of the Year: Highly Commended. 2013: Betty Gilderdale Award for services to children’s literature (Storylines). 2022: Queen's Service Medal: for services to children's literacy and historical research. (New Year Honours).

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