Winter reading for young readers: Why did the Tiger eat the Dental Nurse?
The Kuia and the Spider, Robyn Kahukiwa, Puffin/Penguin, paperback
Just One More: stories by Joy Cowley ill. Gavin Bishop, Gecko Press, paperback
Waiting For Later, Tina Matthew, Walker, hardback
The Kiwi Kid’s ABC, Rebekah Holguin, HarperCollins, paperback
At the Lake, Jill Harris, HarperCollins, paperback
The Lost Tohunga, David Hair, HarperCollins, paperback
The Loblolly Boy and the Sorcerer, James Norcliffe, Longacre/Random House, paperback
Sacrifice Joanna Orwin, HarperCollins, paperback
Since the 1980s, New Zealand publishing for young readers has been in a golden age, with self-assured writers, confident illustrators and knowledgeable publishers and booksellers. A quick glance at some of the titles available for this winter’s reading shows just how far books for Kiwi kids have come. (The gender bias in favour of males appears to be a seasonal oddity.)
It is incredible that thirty years have passed since that classic New Zealand picture book The Kuia and the Spider first appeared. The children who read it in 1981 are now middle-aged but Patricia Grace’s tale has remained timeless. An old Maori lady sits by her stove, peeling kumara and arguing with a spider about which of them is the best weaver. When their grandchildren visit, the unlikely pair argue about whose descendants are the best.
‘My grandchildren are much better than yours.’
Robyn Kahukiwa’s pictures may be a little simple but the central figure, the old kuia, is as solid and powerful as a statue. She and her spider adversary are the stuff that myths are made of. ‘And they argued and argued and argued for the rest of their lives.’
There weren’t many locally-produced books around for Kiwi kids in the 1980s but there were some magnificent stories in school journals and readers. Gecko Press have raided the archives for some of Joy Cowley’s liveliest stories. Just One More makes 17 of these wonderful read-aloud stories available to a new generation. What was the dragon doing in the library? Can a pirate become a bus-driver? Best of all, why did the tiger eat the dental nurse? Gavin Bishop’s witty colour illustrations add to the fun
Tina Matthew has used a delicate Japanese technique of woodcut and stencil to create Later, a charming picture book about Nancy, a small overlooked girl. ‘Will you tell me a story?’ ‘Later.’ When Nancy finds that nobody in her family has time to spare for her, she climbs a tree and waits till later comes. As the moon rises, Nancy listens to the tree and watches her family, who are soon waiting for her return. ‘I know I’m small, but tonight I feel big,’ she says, having gained a better idea of herself.
Alphabet books are now as much cultural indicators as guides to the 26 letters, so The Kiwi Kid’s ABC is as likely to be purchased by a Swedish tourist as a doting grandparent. Neither will be disappointed. Rebekah Holguin’s sharp-edged illustrations depict Kiwi life, from jandals to rugby, aroha to sausage sizzle, by way of lambs and tuatara.
Brothers sharing a summer holiday at their grandfather’s lakeside home sounds like a Kiwi idyll, in At the Lake by Jill Harris, but relations between brothers Simon (14) and Jem (11) have been scratchy since their father left home to work in Australia. The discovery that their holiday spot now includes a paddock full of relocated houses, with a truculent security guard, only makes matters worse. As well as being an exciting adventure, this well-written novel has a convincing picture of young people coming to understand their emotions, and reaching out to help others.
With The Lost Tohunga David Hair concludes the fantasy-thriller trilogy begun in 2009 with The Bone Tiki and The Taniwha’s Tears. Once again young Mat finds the worlds of New Zealand’s myth and history, past and present, are flowing together, so that a visit to Taupo catapults him into a violent (and sometimes blood-drenched) adventure. The skilful interweaving of legend and reality makes for fascinating reading. As rival magicians struggle for total control, Mat has only his skill with a taiaha to depend on, when the climactic battle erupts in the Rotorua Bath House.
Another book that cried out for a sequel was James Norcliffe’s The Loblolly Boy (2009). Now, in The Loblolly Boy and the Sorcerer, we have an even more intriguing tale. The loblolly boy – a green-winged flying boy invisible to almost everyone – is currently Ben, who is desperate to return to his original body. The swapping of bodies can be done with a simple handshake but the interloper, now calling himself Benjy, is enjoying life in his borrowed body, making trouble at home and risking expulsion at school. When Benjy refuses to exchange, Ben is trapped as the loblolly boy in ‘an in-between world’. His dream has become a nightmare. Ben’s only ally is Mel, a schoolgirl he rescued from bullies in a very funny encounter. Can they use the services offered by the sinister Sorcerer, or is he manipulating them? The only advice Ben has comes from a supernatural sea captain and a singing gorilla. This is a richly detailed fantasy, one which cries out for another sequel.
Older teenagers (and adults) will find Joanna Orwin’s Sacrifice rewarding reading. Generations after a volcanic cataclysm has destroyed New Zealand, a gathering of the survivors’ descendants agrees on a mission of sacrifice. Five young men will be sent out into the Great Ocean on a double-hulled reed canoe in search of the legendary kum, a vegetable that may be able to raise the people above their grim struggle for subsistence in the swamps. Taka (16) would rather dance but as he learns how to build and navigate the great canoe, he and his four unlikely comrades become a team. They also become aware of the sacrifice that is demanded of them. What they find, when they undertake their voyage, challenges each of them to the utmost. Although Sacrifice is a lively adventure story, it is also a mature, thought-provoking novel.
Would a publisher have had the courage to produce such a book thirty years ago? Would the reading public for such a volume have existed? Books for New Zealand’s young readers have come a long way in three decades.
Trevor Agnew
Publisher details:
The Kuia and the Spider, Robyn Kahukiwa, Puffin/Penguin NZ, 32 pages, paperback NZ$19.99
ISBN 978-014050387-6
Just One More: stories by Joy Cowley ill. Gavin Bishop, Gecko Press, 91 pages, paperback, NZ$22.99
ISBN 978-1-877467-67-7
Waiting For Later, Tina Matthew, Walker, 32 pages, hardback, NZ$27.99 ISBN 978-1-921720-05-5
The Kiwi Kid’s ABC, Rebekah Holguin, HarperCollins NZ, 32 pages, paperback NZ$19.99
ISBN 978-1-86950-895-1
At the Lake, Jill Harris, HarperCollins, 192 pages, paperback, NZ$19.99 ISBN 978-1-86950-884-5
The Lost Tohunga, David Hair, HarperCollins NZ, paperback, 368 pages, NZ$24.99
ISBN 978-1-86950-827-2
The Loblolly Boy and the Sorcerer, James Norcliffe, Longacre/Random House NZ, 297 pages, paperback, NZ$19.99 ISBN 978-1-877460-69-2
Sacrifice Joanna Orwin, HarperCollins NZ, 368 pages, paperback, NZ$26.99
ISBN 978-1-86950-912-5
This review originally appeared in Winter 2011 in the Your Weekend supplement of The Press, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Monday, 2 January 2012
Wednesday, 1 December 2010
Of Thee I Sing, by Barack Obama
OF THEE I SING: A Letter to my Daughters Barack Obama, ill. Loren Long, 2010, Alfred A. Knopf [NZ agents: Random House] 35 pages, hardback, US$17.99 [NZ$42.99]
ISBN 980-0-375-83527-8
“Have I told you lately how wonderful you are?”
You should avoid being rude about books by celebrities because you never know who’s written them. Barack Obama certainly has the talent to write this book but I imagine a wide range of editorial assistance and advice was also applied. No matter, the result is an excellent children’s picture book. The text is a prose-poem, a letter to the president’s two daughters, Malia (12) and Sasha (9), directing them (and the reader) to thirteen individuals who have played an important role in America’s history.
This is very much a father’s book, representing his hope that his daughters will be able to achieve their potential. Each double-page spread follows a similar pattern. His two daughters see a young girl about their age, holding paint brushes. “Have I told you that you are creative?” asks their father. On the facing page is a stunning portrait of Georgia O’Keeffe painting a flower, after “she moved to the desert and painted petals, bone, bark.”
On another page the question is, “Have I told you that you are brave?” and the girls are looking at a young boy with a baseball bat. The facing page reveals him as Jackie Robinson who “showed us all how to turn fear to respect and respect to love.”
The adjectives and their exemplars accumulate. Albert Einstein is ‘smart,’ Helen Keller is ‘strong’ and Cesar Chavez is ‘inspiring.’
A marvellous feature of Loren Long’s illustrations is that the young people gather together on the left-hand page as each hero is revealed on the facing page. Close study shows that they are interacting. Sitting Bull admires O’Keeffe’s palette, while Martin Luther King Jr and Alan Armstrong exchange a Bible and a rocket.
Some of his pictures show superb imagination. Maya Lin is shown with her face reflected among the names on the polished granite Vietnam Veterans Memorial which she designed. Sitting Bull is a personification of the prairie and its creatures.
More than just pretty pictures and well-chosen words, Of Thee I Sing is a reminder that “America is made up of people of every kind.” The magnificent double-page illustration at the conclusion makes this point firmly with a group portrait of the 13 heroes as children, along with several rows of other young Americans, who may be other important figures of the past or even of the future. Obama’s conclusion makes the same point:
“Have I told you that they are all a part of you?
Have I told you that you are one of them,
And that you are the future?
And have I told you that I love you.”
Brief biographies provide a springboard for further research.
This is an excellent book, beautiful and thought-provoking. Its skilful and moving blend of text and pictures will encourage a generation to examine their roots and live their dreams.
This book makes it clear that Obama is proud of his daughters, but it also shows that they have every reason to be proud of him.
Trevor Agnew
3rd December 2010
ISBN 980-0-375-83527-8
“Have I told you lately how wonderful you are?”
You should avoid being rude about books by celebrities because you never know who’s written them. Barack Obama certainly has the talent to write this book but I imagine a wide range of editorial assistance and advice was also applied. No matter, the result is an excellent children’s picture book. The text is a prose-poem, a letter to the president’s two daughters, Malia (12) and Sasha (9), directing them (and the reader) to thirteen individuals who have played an important role in America’s history.
This is very much a father’s book, representing his hope that his daughters will be able to achieve their potential. Each double-page spread follows a similar pattern. His two daughters see a young girl about their age, holding paint brushes. “Have I told you that you are creative?” asks their father. On the facing page is a stunning portrait of Georgia O’Keeffe painting a flower, after “she moved to the desert and painted petals, bone, bark.”
On another page the question is, “Have I told you that you are brave?” and the girls are looking at a young boy with a baseball bat. The facing page reveals him as Jackie Robinson who “showed us all how to turn fear to respect and respect to love.”
The adjectives and their exemplars accumulate. Albert Einstein is ‘smart,’ Helen Keller is ‘strong’ and Cesar Chavez is ‘inspiring.’
A marvellous feature of Loren Long’s illustrations is that the young people gather together on the left-hand page as each hero is revealed on the facing page. Close study shows that they are interacting. Sitting Bull admires O’Keeffe’s palette, while Martin Luther King Jr and Alan Armstrong exchange a Bible and a rocket.
Some of his pictures show superb imagination. Maya Lin is shown with her face reflected among the names on the polished granite Vietnam Veterans Memorial which she designed. Sitting Bull is a personification of the prairie and its creatures.
More than just pretty pictures and well-chosen words, Of Thee I Sing is a reminder that “America is made up of people of every kind.” The magnificent double-page illustration at the conclusion makes this point firmly with a group portrait of the 13 heroes as children, along with several rows of other young Americans, who may be other important figures of the past or even of the future. Obama’s conclusion makes the same point:
“Have I told you that they are all a part of you?
Have I told you that you are one of them,
And that you are the future?
And have I told you that I love you.”
Brief biographies provide a springboard for further research.
This is an excellent book, beautiful and thought-provoking. Its skilful and moving blend of text and pictures will encourage a generation to examine their roots and live their dreams.
This book makes it clear that Obama is proud of his daughters, but it also shows that they have every reason to be proud of him.
Trevor Agnew
3rd December 2010
Thursday, 25 November 2010
Bartimaeus and the Ring of Solomon
Bartimaeus and the Ring of Solomon Jonathan Stroud, 2010, Doubleday [Random House], 403 pages, paperback, NZ$36.99
ISBN 978 0 385 61916 5
Bartimaeus is back. Or, rather he’s before. When the Bartimeus trilogy ended with young Nathan the political kid-wizard joining forces (quite literally) with Bartimaeus of Uruk, his djinni servant, it was a terrible loss to fantasy literature.
Fortunately Jonathan Stroud has taken Bartimaeus at his word and allowed him to tell us the often-hinted-at story of his days with King Solomon. It is a prequel (ghastly word) that stands alone as a comic monument to recalcitrant spirits and their struggles with the bloody-minded magicians who try to enslave them. As always Bartimaeus lards his narrative with his distinctively acid wit. “Impartial observation liberally spiced with sarcasm and personal abuse,” he calls it. Then there are his footnotes – each one a comic gem.
According to Bartimaeus – and who would doubt his word? - King Solomon not only has a ring that can command the mightiest powers, but he also has 17 of the world’s finest magicians serving him. Each magician has a nasty collection of afrits, imps, foliots, djinn, spirits and marids under their command, all of them locked in a snarling web of intrigue and enchantment.
Bartimaeus’s current master, the magician Khaba the Cruel, is using the djinni to help build Solomon’s temple, but a new task arises when the Queen of Sheba rejects Solomon’s diplomacy. Asmira, a lively young female assassin, with sharp attitudes and sharper knives, is dispatched to kill Solomon, while Bartimaeus, as always, is seeking ways to turn events to his advantage. The result is a hilariously funny satire of magical fantasy sagas, with plenty of triple- and quadruple-crossing. Asmira is a character who we’d all like to meet again, and Bartimaeus in his youth (well, second millennium) is as much savage fun as ever.
Stroud has done two good things here. He has produced a prequel that is even better than the original trilogy, and he has found a way to produce many more future (mis)adventures for Bartimaeus.
Trevor Agnew
ISBN 978 0 385 61916 5
Bartimaeus is back. Or, rather he’s before. When the Bartimeus trilogy ended with young Nathan the political kid-wizard joining forces (quite literally) with Bartimaeus of Uruk, his djinni servant, it was a terrible loss to fantasy literature.
Fortunately Jonathan Stroud has taken Bartimaeus at his word and allowed him to tell us the often-hinted-at story of his days with King Solomon. It is a prequel (ghastly word) that stands alone as a comic monument to recalcitrant spirits and their struggles with the bloody-minded magicians who try to enslave them. As always Bartimaeus lards his narrative with his distinctively acid wit. “Impartial observation liberally spiced with sarcasm and personal abuse,” he calls it. Then there are his footnotes – each one a comic gem.
According to Bartimaeus – and who would doubt his word? - King Solomon not only has a ring that can command the mightiest powers, but he also has 17 of the world’s finest magicians serving him. Each magician has a nasty collection of afrits, imps, foliots, djinn, spirits and marids under their command, all of them locked in a snarling web of intrigue and enchantment.
Bartimaeus’s current master, the magician Khaba the Cruel, is using the djinni to help build Solomon’s temple, but a new task arises when the Queen of Sheba rejects Solomon’s diplomacy. Asmira, a lively young female assassin, with sharp attitudes and sharper knives, is dispatched to kill Solomon, while Bartimaeus, as always, is seeking ways to turn events to his advantage. The result is a hilariously funny satire of magical fantasy sagas, with plenty of triple- and quadruple-crossing. Asmira is a character who we’d all like to meet again, and Bartimaeus in his youth (well, second millennium) is as much savage fun as ever.
Stroud has done two good things here. He has produced a prequel that is even better than the original trilogy, and he has found a way to produce many more future (mis)adventures for Bartimaeus.
Trevor Agnew
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
Theodore Boone, by John Grisham
Theodore Boone John Grisham, Hodder & Stoughton, [NZ agents: Hachette] 263 pages, paperback, NZ$38.99ISBN 978-1-444-71449-4
“Most of all Theo, loved the courtrooms themselves…where lawyers battled like gladiators and judges ruled like kings.”
If John Grisham was to write a young adult novel, it was inevitable that it would be about the law. Inevitable also that there would be an adult-jacketed version, with a discreet title, for Grisham fans of mature years. (The Young Adult version carries the full title Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer, and has its own website at theodoreboone.com.)
Theo (both of whose parents are lawyers) is only 13 but already deeply involved in the legal affairs of his home town. He even has his own ‘law office’ in his parents’ law firm, giving advice to his fellow students. Theo’s familiarity with the courts leads to his class attending a murder trial, while his willingness to give legal advice puts him in a difficult, perhaps dangerous situation. It also entangles him in the court case.
Theo is a pleasant lad but other characters are lightly-sketched, while an all-seeing narrator tells readers what to think. For example, a sinister figure dominates the story. ‘Theo had heard Omar Cheepe described as “an armed thug” and a “man who enjoyed breaking the law.”’ Yet Cheepe does nothing more than look at people and Theo never even meets him. The problem seems to be that Grisham’s original plot has been cut apart to provide the inevitable sequel
Although it will be enjoyed by adults, Theodore Boone is not up to the standard of young adult novels.
Trevor Agnew
This review first appeared in Your Weekend Magazine (Fairfax) on Saturday 24th July 2010.
“Most of all Theo, loved the courtrooms themselves…where lawyers battled like gladiators and judges ruled like kings.”
If John Grisham was to write a young adult novel, it was inevitable that it would be about the law. Inevitable also that there would be an adult-jacketed version, with a discreet title, for Grisham fans of mature years. (The Young Adult version carries the full title Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer, and has its own website at theodoreboone.com.)
Theo (both of whose parents are lawyers) is only 13 but already deeply involved in the legal affairs of his home town. He even has his own ‘law office’ in his parents’ law firm, giving advice to his fellow students. Theo’s familiarity with the courts leads to his class attending a murder trial, while his willingness to give legal advice puts him in a difficult, perhaps dangerous situation. It also entangles him in the court case.
Theo is a pleasant lad but other characters are lightly-sketched, while an all-seeing narrator tells readers what to think. For example, a sinister figure dominates the story. ‘Theo had heard Omar Cheepe described as “an armed thug” and a “man who enjoyed breaking the law.”’ Yet Cheepe does nothing more than look at people and Theo never even meets him. The problem seems to be that Grisham’s original plot has been cut apart to provide the inevitable sequel
Although it will be enjoyed by adults, Theodore Boone is not up to the standard of young adult novels.
Trevor Agnew
This review first appeared in Your Weekend Magazine (Fairfax) on Saturday 24th July 2010.
Time Riders: Day of the Predator
Time Riders: Day of the Predator [Time Riders 2] Alex Scarrow, Puffin (Penguin), 434 pages, paperback, NZ$19.99 ISBN 978-0-14-132693-1
Alex Scarrow has written the best young adult science fiction novels since Robert Heinlein was producing ‘juveniles’ like Citizen of the Galaxy. Time Riders: Day of the Predator – the second in a series which begun with a resuscitated Nazi Germany using flying saucers – has the ingenious concept of time agents, who are trying to stop history from being destroyed, functioning from a time-bubble base that hides by endlessly experiencing the same two days in New York: the 10th and 11th of September 2001. The agents themselves are young people recruited from unexpected disasters – crashing planes and collapsing buildings – so they are never spotted as missing.
Liam, formerly a steward on the Titanic, may not have picked up modern nomenclature yet – popsicles and Mickey Mouse are a mystery to him – but he’s intelligent and adaptable. These are survival skills for time travellers, especially when a disaster on a routine mission sees Liam fighting dinosaurs in the Cretaceous. These are smart dinosaurs which are able to learn from experience and may just possibly be capable of conquering the planet. In fact at one point in the story it seems they might have succeeded (or will succeed; time travel is tricky).
Alex Scarrow provides a handy diagram to let readers distinguish the various possible timelines but he does not write down to his readers. In fact he draws them in to the conspiracy to keep time travel a secret. Human footprints turning up in Cretaceous fossil beds are covered-up as hoaxes, complete with references to genuine conspiracy websites. There are paradoxes but he meets them head on. Not every death in this novel is forever but all of them are genuinely moving. This is because, as well as providing lots of high tech action, Scarrow has created people who engage our emotions.
Even minor characters have depth. We don’t just feel sympathy for the time agents as they struggle to save the life of Edward Chan, one the creators of time travel; we also feel sympathy for Chan’s would-be assassin, who has travelled downstream in time to destroy time travel forever. Even the bloodthirsty dinosaurs manage to tug our heart-strings as they begin to master tools and weapons (in order to rip our hearts out).
Even more remarkably, Scarrow has created a likeable robot – or rather, Becky, a support unit incorporating a genetically enhanced human body and artificial intelligence. Becky is learning about being female and human but – in one of the book’s inspired running gags – she is learning from books like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
“I am about to kiss you,” she said. “This would be an appropriate gesture of gratitude. I have references.”
The Time Riders is lively, intelligent fun which rewards readers for their prior knowledge. Reading these books may be the smartest thing a teenager can do.
Trevor Agnew
30 August 2010
Alex Scarrow has written the best young adult science fiction novels since Robert Heinlein was producing ‘juveniles’ like Citizen of the Galaxy. Time Riders: Day of the Predator – the second in a series which begun with a resuscitated Nazi Germany using flying saucers – has the ingenious concept of time agents, who are trying to stop history from being destroyed, functioning from a time-bubble base that hides by endlessly experiencing the same two days in New York: the 10th and 11th of September 2001. The agents themselves are young people recruited from unexpected disasters – crashing planes and collapsing buildings – so they are never spotted as missing.
Liam, formerly a steward on the Titanic, may not have picked up modern nomenclature yet – popsicles and Mickey Mouse are a mystery to him – but he’s intelligent and adaptable. These are survival skills for time travellers, especially when a disaster on a routine mission sees Liam fighting dinosaurs in the Cretaceous. These are smart dinosaurs which are able to learn from experience and may just possibly be capable of conquering the planet. In fact at one point in the story it seems they might have succeeded (or will succeed; time travel is tricky).
Alex Scarrow provides a handy diagram to let readers distinguish the various possible timelines but he does not write down to his readers. In fact he draws them in to the conspiracy to keep time travel a secret. Human footprints turning up in Cretaceous fossil beds are covered-up as hoaxes, complete with references to genuine conspiracy websites. There are paradoxes but he meets them head on. Not every death in this novel is forever but all of them are genuinely moving. This is because, as well as providing lots of high tech action, Scarrow has created people who engage our emotions.
Even minor characters have depth. We don’t just feel sympathy for the time agents as they struggle to save the life of Edward Chan, one the creators of time travel; we also feel sympathy for Chan’s would-be assassin, who has travelled downstream in time to destroy time travel forever. Even the bloodthirsty dinosaurs manage to tug our heart-strings as they begin to master tools and weapons (in order to rip our hearts out).
Even more remarkably, Scarrow has created a likeable robot – or rather, Becky, a support unit incorporating a genetically enhanced human body and artificial intelligence. Becky is learning about being female and human but – in one of the book’s inspired running gags – she is learning from books like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
“I am about to kiss you,” she said. “This would be an appropriate gesture of gratitude. I have references.”
The Time Riders is lively, intelligent fun which rewards readers for their prior knowledge. Reading these books may be the smartest thing a teenager can do.
Trevor Agnew
30 August 2010
Monday, 14 June 2010
Unseen Academicals
Unseen Academicals: A Discworld Novel Terry Pratchett, Doubleday, 2009, 400 pages, hardback, NZ$65.99
Terry Pratchett is the world’s most beloved author. Decades of dedicated after-sales service at author-signings have created an international army of supporters, who love his 36 Discworld novels and are worried that the 37th might not be as good. Alzheimer’s disease means Pratchett can no longer type, so Unseen Academicals was dictated, which explains a slackening of incisiveness in some of the dialogue.
Fans will wince in sympathy when he uses ‘popcorn’ instead of ‘banged grains’ (p.282) but the wordplay is witty, the footnotes are funny and the social satire is as sharp as ever, with Pratchett’s crab-bucket theory of social improvement.
While football and fashion (specifically dwarf micro-mail) offer some Ankh-Morporkians a chance to rise in the world, life seems more complicated for Nutt who is (possibly) a goblin. The result is the ultimate town-versus-gown grudge match. Although Death is strangely absent, many Discworld characters – including Low King Rhys, Dr Lawn, Stanley Howler, Reverend Oats, Hwel, Lady Margolotta and Mr Shine - get brief nods.
Unseen Academicals makes great reading.
Trevor Agnew
This book review first appeared in Your Weekend Magazine, New Zealand 19 December 2009
Terry Pratchett is the world’s most beloved author. Decades of dedicated after-sales service at author-signings have created an international army of supporters, who love his 36 Discworld novels and are worried that the 37th might not be as good. Alzheimer’s disease means Pratchett can no longer type, so Unseen Academicals was dictated, which explains a slackening of incisiveness in some of the dialogue.
Fans will wince in sympathy when he uses ‘popcorn’ instead of ‘banged grains’ (p.282) but the wordplay is witty, the footnotes are funny and the social satire is as sharp as ever, with Pratchett’s crab-bucket theory of social improvement.
While football and fashion (specifically dwarf micro-mail) offer some Ankh-Morporkians a chance to rise in the world, life seems more complicated for Nutt who is (possibly) a goblin. The result is the ultimate town-versus-gown grudge match. Although Death is strangely absent, many Discworld characters – including Low King Rhys, Dr Lawn, Stanley Howler, Reverend Oats, Hwel, Lady Margolotta and Mr Shine - get brief nods.
Unseen Academicals makes great reading.
Trevor Agnew
This book review first appeared in Your Weekend Magazine, New Zealand 19 December 2009
Saturday, 6 June 2009
The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins
The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins Barbara Kerley, ill Brian Selznick, Scholastic, 2009 (2001), 36 pages, paperback, ISBN978-0-439-11495-0
‘The jolly old beast is not deceased.
There’s life in him again.’
First published in hardback in 2001, this Caldecott Honour Book now returns in paperback to gain a new readership. Barbara Kerley’s skilful text and Brian Selznick’s imaginative illustrations bring to life the amazing Victorian sculptor-lecturer-showman, Waterhouse Hawkins, whose giant dinosaur statues in Crystal Palace Park still have the power to enthral.
We see Hawkins as a boy drawing and sculpting animals, and then as a respected scientist using fossil fragments to create pictures and models of dinosaurs. Queen Victoria visits his workshop full of life-size replicas in clay and plaster, being made ready for display at the Crystal Palace. After his London triumph, Hawkins is invited to New York to create more dinosaur replicas. Political skulduggery (by ‘Boss’ Tweed, no less) destroys his dream for central Park but Hawkins has other achievements to uplift his spirits both at home and abroad.
This large format picture book has a generous feel to it. The fresh and readable text is supplemented with an account of Hawkins’ remarkable life and works, as well the menu for the famous dinner eaten by 22 scientists inside the belly of the unfinished iguanodon statue. The colourful illustrations capture the magic of dinosaurs both as they appeared to Victorians and as we see them today. Some of the pictures seem to flow through time, and all of them reflect the enthusiasm of Hawkins himself. As he walks through London, his sketches of dinosaurs are carried by the wind to amaze passers-by, while Hawkins himself is constantly attended by the spirits of the extinct creatures he loved.
As the scientists sang at his historic iguanodon dinner:
‘The jolly old beast is not deceased.
There’s life in him again.’
‘The jolly old beast is not deceased.
There’s life in him again.’
First published in hardback in 2001, this Caldecott Honour Book now returns in paperback to gain a new readership. Barbara Kerley’s skilful text and Brian Selznick’s imaginative illustrations bring to life the amazing Victorian sculptor-lecturer-showman, Waterhouse Hawkins, whose giant dinosaur statues in Crystal Palace Park still have the power to enthral.
We see Hawkins as a boy drawing and sculpting animals, and then as a respected scientist using fossil fragments to create pictures and models of dinosaurs. Queen Victoria visits his workshop full of life-size replicas in clay and plaster, being made ready for display at the Crystal Palace. After his London triumph, Hawkins is invited to New York to create more dinosaur replicas. Political skulduggery (by ‘Boss’ Tweed, no less) destroys his dream for central Park but Hawkins has other achievements to uplift his spirits both at home and abroad.
This large format picture book has a generous feel to it. The fresh and readable text is supplemented with an account of Hawkins’ remarkable life and works, as well the menu for the famous dinner eaten by 22 scientists inside the belly of the unfinished iguanodon statue. The colourful illustrations capture the magic of dinosaurs both as they appeared to Victorians and as we see them today. Some of the pictures seem to flow through time, and all of them reflect the enthusiasm of Hawkins himself. As he walks through London, his sketches of dinosaurs are carried by the wind to amaze passers-by, while Hawkins himself is constantly attended by the spirits of the extinct creatures he loved.
As the scientists sang at his historic iguanodon dinner:
‘The jolly old beast is not deceased.
There’s life in him again.’
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