A Hidden World:
Discovering the Beauty
of New Zealand Fungi

 

A Hidden World:
Discovering the Beauty
of New Zealand Fungi
Paula Vigus
Potton and Burton (2025)
Hardback, 168 pages
978-1-9885507-9-4 $49.95

 I was once one of a group of soldiers running through an old pine plantation, when I saw to my amazement a huge red toadstool with white spots. It looked just like the illustrations of goblin’s homes in children’s storybooks. Accustomed only to gathering mushrooms from sheep paddocks on misty mornings, I had no idea such spotted fungal fantasies could be real. I would have paused to check for little doors and windows but our compass exercise had a cruel time limit.  

 Paging through A Hidden World decades later, I had a sudden memory flash - on page 40 to be precise. There was my goblin house identified as Amanita muscaria or fly agaric and noted as ‘a favourite subject for artists and storytellers.’ Its ‘polka dots and bright red caps’ were beautifully photographed by Paula Vigus against a background of pine needles.

 Her prose is as perfect as her photographs. She recalls A. muscaria fondly as the first mushrooms she ever photographed while holidaying with her grandchildren at Hanmer Springs in 2015. ‘Some were as big as dinner plates.’  Then she adds that these fungi are notorious for their toxins. ‘If you touch one it will not harm you, but I strongly advise that you don’t lick your fingers.’

 The whole book is like that. Each handsome fungi portrait is accompanied by its scientific and common name, then a brisk description of its special features, habitat and distribution. These are followed by intriguing and enchanting revelations about each. Take, for example, Entoloma hochstetteri or werewere kōkako. It’s a stunningly eye-catching blue mushroom which graces New Zealand’s $50 note. The Māori know why it was chosen to share the note with the kōkako, and so does Paula Vigus who writes about ‘the belief that when a kōkako rubbed its wattles on the mushrooms it turned blue.’

 The full-page colour photos of everything from toothed fungi to stinkhorns, cat’s tongue to jelly babies, wax gills to the golden tufty top are simply stunning. The fungi look like everything from undersea coral to alien monsters. The colours too are unbelievably beautiful. This book will inspire any young reader to an appreciation of what an amazing world of fungi surrounds us. A hidden world, indeed. Nor do would-be mushroomers and funglers have to travel far to find interesting specimens. A southern false morel was found in the Franz Josef Glacier car-park, while a shaggy-coated dotty inkcap was located ‘on a park walkway in Christchurch…all bundled up and waiting for winter.’

 

With her superb photography skills, inquisitive mind, clarity of expression and impish wit, Paula Vigus has created a book that will inspire an enthusiasm for fungi. Young readers will find her summaries delightfully readable. The pictures are all attention-grabbers and her essays on photographing these tiny subjects reflect her years of learning techniques in the years since her interest in fungi began during the Covid lockdown.

 She even has a message for those who kick over toadstools, ‘…if you kick a toadstool or mushroom over, it grows back just the same and you have probably spread the spores. Hooray says the mushroom!’

 

Trevor Agnew
June 2026 [Review 3841]

 This review was first published in the July 2026 issue of Magpies Magazine.

 

1000 Steps (2025)                                                                 
W. Newton Reid
Pub: W. Newton Reid
Poetry-Novel
Paperback, 163 pages
ISBN 978 0 473 75662 8 

 

I’ll admit I felt trepidation at the prospect of reviewing this book. 1000 Steps is a novel written in short poems. It follows teenaged Amy’s thoughts and memories as she climbs the thousand steps of the title. She recalls her troubled childhood and dysfunctional family. She worries about her little brother Sean.

‘I want to protect him from bad things.
Like the bad things that happened to me.’

 

Amy, it gradually emerges, has been sexually abused by people she should have been able to trust. She looks back on her life and feels pain.

‘I wish my thoughts would shut up.’

 

Empathy is the key to this book’s success. Readers are swiftly drawn into Amy’s thoughts and share her feelings of powerlessness and grief. Reading W. Newton Reid’s beautifully simple poetry, we become one with Amy, as she overcomes tiredness and despair to achieve her goal.

‘I’ll focus on the steps,\
and nothing else.\ I can control that.’

 While her memories may be grim, Amy also recalls how she experienced positive moments, such as the sanctuary of the library where she learned that she was not alone.

Amy finds another sanctuary as she achieves the goal of her climb. The thousand steps have taken her to the ironically-named Lovers Leap, where she rejects the idea of suicide and instead lets a tiny wildflower - ‘determined, resilient, beautiful’ - inspire her.

‘You can be like that flower.’

 

Amy is given help on her climb after she has an accident and becomes aware that people can be caring and kind. With her thousand steps  achieved, Amy’s journey has a positive ending, where she meets comfort and hope, kindness and acceptance.   

 

By the end, I felt that 1000 Steps is a book which has a great deal to offer. I can see how teachers, librarians and counsellors might wish to put it into the hands of troubled teens.  It is compulsively readable. Each poem calls for the next to be read and so we are journeying with Amy.

 Not wanting to spoil the surprises and unexpected twists in Amy’s saga, I have left out many sections I really wished to quote. I don’t want to spoil the impact for readers. These poems are restrained but they have lines that smash like hammers and others that strike like snakes.

 The graceful cover by Quinn West perfectly captures the essence of the poems.

 Trevor Agnew 
30 Mar 2026 [Review 3829]

 This review first appeared in the New Zealand Supplement of Magpies magazine, May 2026.

 

Whenua: Māori Pūrākau of Aotearoa (2025)

 

Whenua: Māori Pūrākau of Aotearoa
Isobel Joy Te Aho-White

                                                                                                 

Whenua: Māori Pūrākau of Aotearoa
Isobel Joy Te Aho-White (2025)
Little Moa/Hachette
Māori legends, 90 pages
Hardback
ISBN 978 1 86971 588 5

 ‘We begin our storytelling with the oldest tale of them all. This is the story of the creation of the world.’

 Pūrākau is a marvellously flexible word. Depending on context, it can mean myth or story or incredible tale. Even legend. In Whenua: Māori Pūrākau of Aotearoa, all of these meanings apply. In this wonderful book author and artist, Isobel Joy Te Aho-White, is retelling eleven stories that have been passed down, told and retold, drawn, carved and painted, by generations past. Her skill with words, pictures and maps introduces a new generation to some the world’s oldest stories. And, as she reminds her readers. ‘For us, storytelling is an art form that is used to relay important information about nature, history, healing and the land.’ It is the whenua (land) which brings these stories together.

 

Isobel Joy Te Aho-White has chosen eleven pūrākau to retell, beginning with ‘The Waka of Aoraki.’ Four bickering brothers, children of the sky gods, decide to visit their auntie Papatūānuku, the Earth Mother. Unfortunately, the brothers’ arguments distract Aoraki as he chants the spells which would have enabled their canoe to fly safely. The waka crashes and the brothers scramble on to its upturned hull. Aoraki throws his korowai [cloak] over them. ‘There they stayed, shivering under the korowai, as the centuries passed … Slowly the brothers began to turn to stone…’ Thus the snow-covered brothers become Kā Tiritiri-o-te-Moana (the white caps of the ocean), the Southern Alps. This retelling really brings the stroppy brothers to life and also fulfils the purpose of the tale: making a landscape memorable, in a tradition to be passed on. There is also some truly memorable prose: ‘Never again would the brothers join their mother or their father in the sky and Aoraki’s chant can still be heard blowing through the surrounding valleys of Kā Tiritiri-o-te-Moana.’

 

Then there are the illustrations by the author. There are colour pictures on every page of this 90-page book!  The six pages of the Aoraki story have paintings, decorative designs and a map, all of which help carry the story.  The best picture in the book shows Aoraki’s canoe in full flight over the continent of Australia. Turn the page and the canoe is plunging to destruction, with Aoraki’s korowai sweeping over the foreground. Turn the page and the korowai enfolds the brothers, as it takes on the familiar outline of the mountains.

 

Three more stories from Maui’s canoe (the South Island) follow. I was lucky enough to hear the legend of ‘Rākaihautū and Tuhiraki’ being told at Rehua Marae, Christchurch. Four decades later I still remember the active digging motions of the storyteller, as he spoke of Rākaihautū carving out the lakes and rivers.  Isobel Joy Te Aho-White adds a reminder that the names of people, places and things are important. ‘Landmarks, tribal areas, houses, waka and even weapons have names.’ Sure enough, Rākaihautū’s ‘trusty ko (digging stick) is named Tū Whakarōria. And the mountain where Rākaihautū set this ko up to rest from its work, Tuhiraki, still stands looking over Akaroa.

 

‘The Sleeping Giant’ is a traditional just-so story which explains the origin of the Moeraki boulders, and does it with flair and well-characterised heroes. ‘Poutini and Waitaiki’ is a poignant love story which tells of the origin of the West Coast’s unique, pale, flecked greenstone. It also has the instantly memorable reminder that Poutini, the taniwha who is the kaitiaki of pounamu, is only frightened of one thing – the sandstone teeth of his sister, Whatipū. Just so.

 

The other seven stories are all equally well retold and illustrated. Once again, volcanoes and hot springs are created as freezing explorers are saved. Wellington Harbour is formed as taniwha struggle to escape the confines of Pōneke Lagoon. Lovesick mountains battle in vain for the love of Pīhanga. Okatia, the spirit living in a giant totara, carves out the Tararua and Ruahine ranges. Whātonga’s troubles with his two wives results in the discovery of a plentiful forest home. An angry tohunga and an annoying young whale change the landscape around Wairoa forever. A battle between fairy folk creates the volcanoes of Tāmaki Makaurau. Whenua is indeed the right title for this book.

 The result is a handsome collection of exciting and interesting stories from the great treasury of Māori pūrākau, retold with respect and illustrated with imagination.

Using the Māori tradition of Maui’s canoe and Maui’s fish, Isobel Joy Te Aho-White has also created some maps of Aotearoa New Zealand which will really get young brains working and – above all - seeing things from another point-of-view. Which is really what these eleven pūrākau do as well.

 

Trevor Agnew
17 June 2026  [Review 3846]

 

Niue: People, Culture and Identity

                                                                             

Niue: People, Culture and Identity
Mele Nemaia (2025)   
Oratia Books
Moana Oceania series 
Non-fiction, 48 pages
Paperback
978-1-99-004271-3 $29.99 Pb

 

We all need to know more about Niue. I was genuinely surprised when I read Lynda Finn’s Trevor the Daring Duck (2023) and discovered that Niue has no streams. When a duck arrived from New Zealand, the kindly Niueans made him a pond!

 

Niue: People, Culture and Identity, the latest in the Moana Oceania series, introduces this charming island and its people with sympathetic text, fact boxes and colour photographs of daily life.

 Two numbers show why this particular book is so important. Niue has just under 2,000 people, while some 35,000 Niueans live in New Zealand. Both groups will value Mele Nemaia’s overview of Niue and its people. Non-Niueans will also find much to interest them in its colourful pages.

 Oratia’s Moana Oceania series of books (about the life and culture of such Pacific communities as Fiji, Sāmoa and the Cook Islands) are primarily written for people from those communities who want to know more about their heritage and identity.  They are also written for New Zealanders who want to find out more about the people of the Pacific, since New Zealand’s histories are inextricably intertwined with those of the Pacific. Niue was annexed by New Zealand in 1901 and 150 Niueans volunteered for the Great War. While Niue became self-governing in 1974, all Niueans are also New Zealand citizens.

 The author Mele Nemaia, MNZM, was born in Niue and has worked as a teacher and author in New Zealand. Thus, she is able to see this tiny community both from inside and outside and describe it with affection. I loved the way her first section, dealing with Niuean identity and Niuean Values, begins with family. Of course, this book is bilingual with facing pages in English and Niuean. So ‘Niue Values’ translates as ‘Tau aga moe e tau Mahani Mahuiga a Niue.’

Family connections are key elements in Niue’s fourteen villages and the plantations which supply the people with food. The various crops and the changing methods of cultivation are well described. Because food is important, there are several pages on how meals are prepared and cooked, with ingredients ranging from tuna to uga (coconut crab).

 Niue is the world’s largest raised coral atoll, with a circumference of 65 kilometres. The island’s fringing reefs and steep cliffs make it easy to see why Mele Nemaia says, ‘Niue has a beautiful but harsh environment.’ It also has a lively culture, shown here in the churches and schools, along with music, dancing, sports and weaving.

 Young readers will enjoy the account of the Takai New Year festival where villages try to outdo each other with a procession of decorated vehicles: ‘who has the most beautiful decorations, who the oldest and scrappiest vehicle, and who has the loudest boom box? … The lolly scramble is an important part of the takai.’

 The reading level for Niue is aimed at 8+, so it is also an ideal resource for schools and libraries. There is no index but the contents page is a good guide to the well-organised sections.

 Trevor Agnew 14 April 2026 [Review 3828]

Note: This review originally appeared in the May 2026 issue of Magpies magazine.

Trevor the Daring Duck: A True Tale from Niue

 

Trevor the Daring Duck  
Lynda Finn  (2023)
Nikki Slade Robinson

                                                                                     

Trevor the Daring Duck:
A True Tale from Niue
Lynda Finn
Ill. Nikki Slade Robinson
Scholastic (2023)
Picture book
32 pages Paperback
ISBN 978 1 77543 807 6 

 

‘Quack! What’s under this leaf? Quack! What’s around this corner?’

This picture book for young readers is the story of a duck who achieved fame by making an extraordinary journey.

‘Trevor … was a mallard duck and he was very curious.’

One day a huge storm washes Trevor off the rocks into the sea.

‘Yipee! I’m going on an adventure.’

Sometimes floating on the sea and sometimes flying, Trevor travels a long way across the Pacific Ocean. Finally he comes to an island, where he meets another bird.

‘Fakaalofa atu,’ says the bird.

‘Kia ora,’ Trevor replies

Trevor finds he has arrived at Niue and that a veka (woodhen) is welcoming him.

‘Where are all the ducks?’ asks Trevor.

‘What is a duck? asks Veka.

The rest of Lynda Finn’s charming story tells of Trevor’s life on Niue.

‘Because there are no streams or ponds on Niue, kind people made a special puddle for Trevor the duck.’ He was friends with Veka and some local hens. Newspapers wrote about him as ‘Duck Stuck in Niue: Trevor the Lonely Duck.’ Soon he was world famous. People brought him corn and oats and he shared it with his bird friends. Trevor loved his new home on Niue.

‘So Trevor, the curious duck, stayed on Niue for the rest of his life.’ 

Nikki Slade Robinson’s colour illustrations for this story are charming. As well as creating a very appealing cast of birds, she has used shapes and textures to create dramatic landscapes and seascapes for them. The result is an attractive introduction to Niue, its people and its language. And its duck.

 Trevor Agnew,  25 October 2023 [Review 3600]

 

The Only Branch on the Family Tree
 Sherryl Clark                      

 The Only Branch on the Family Tree
Sherryl Clark (2025)
Ill. Astred Hicks
University of Queensland Press
Verse Novel, 112 pages, Paperback
ISBN 9780702268915           

 ‘Today is the day 
my face flames red and
my eyes sting.’

This immensely readable verse novel begins as young Gemma surprises her teacher by erupting emotionally over a late assignment.

Fortunately, Gemma’s teacher, Mrs Wellcome, is aware that an Exploring Family project can cause personal stress. Then, Gemma tells how her project began. Her best friend, Marley, has a large family, so she was planning to create a big family tree. Gemma, by contrast, has only her mother.

Gemma sees herself and her mother as a team and ‘best friends.’ (Gemma is aware that her Mum’s parents are dead and that her own father is ‘on the other side of the world,’ where her mother left him.) In Sherryl Clark’s carefully crafted verses, the reader learns that Gemma had a sudden inspiration on how to deal with her assignment:

‘My project was going to be a collage…
… just lots of great photos
of Mum
and me.’

Sorting through old photos to make her collage, Gemma makes a shattering discovery. Her Nan is still alive.

‘Why would Mum lie to me?’

Gemma tells the reader what then happens in a series of short vivid poems.  She and Marley use the computer to find the address and phone number of her grandmother. Gemma feels she can’t question her mother.

What if this becomes another ‘closed subject’?

Realising Nan’s birthday is near, Gemma buys a card and a present. She calculates that she and Nan have both missed sharing eleven birthdays, so Gemma takes a bus to Nan’s suburb and rings the doorbell.

Avoiding spoiling the surprises that are in store, Gemma hears her Nan’s account of why her only relatives aren’t speaking to each other. Then Gemma realises she has to tell her mother what has happened. This conversation is a difficult one, especially when Gemma points out that her mother has lied to her about Nan being dead. Reconciliation takes time but with the helpful support of her friends and some sound advice from Mrs Wellcome, Gemma is able to make a breakthrough with her mother.

‘Alright, I’ll try, but if it goes wrong again …’

The meeting takes place and it seems to Gemma that she has failed. Her mother and grandmother seem as far apart as ever.  Then Mum returns home and provides the perfect finishing touch to Gemma’s family project.

The conclusion is believable and enjoyable.

 A ‘novel in verse’ might sound off-putting to young readers, so it must be stressed that The Only Branch on the Family Tree is immensely readable. Each poem is like a snapshot of an important moment or a special realisation. When Gemma tries a computer search for her grandmother, she finds the death date of her grandfather.

‘I’m fine,’ I say,
feeling silly about crying
for a grandpa
I never knew.

Powerful moments like these, conveyed in just a few carefully chosen words, are one of the reasons that poetry speaks across the ages.

Sherryl Clark has created a moving story which will resonate strongly with every reader. 

 

Before writing The Only Branch on the Family Tree, Sherryl Clark carried out research which included conversations with several families who had experienced estrangement. She found that ‘what is common to all is the pain, which is also often grief.’ At the end of the book, she has a list of helplines suitable for young people in Australia and New Zealand.

 

Trevor Agnew 29 April 2025 [Review 3767]

 

 

Dreamslinger  Graci Kim

 

Dreamslinger  Graci Kim
Penguin Random House (2025)
Novel, 295 pages, Paperback
ISBN 978 1 776 95 343 1

 

New Zealand author Graci Kim follows her highly successful 

Gifted Clans trilogy with another lively and humorous fantasy series which also draws on Korean mythology.

Dreamslinger introduces Aria Loveridge (14), an ordinary girl with an extraordinary genetic mutation which makes her a dreamslinger.   Aria has a bright personality – her father, Professor Jack Loveridge, calls her ‘sparkler’ after the firework. Aria has accepted that being a dreamslinger makes her different in many ways. She feels her emotions more deeply than ordinary people and this has consequences.

Dreamslingers all have powerful dreams about the same mystical world, The Asleep. The emotions generated there can have fatal results. (Aria’s Korean-born mother died in a major dreamslinger Outburst, when Aria was only four.) Undaunted, Jack has campaigned for acceptance of the dreamslingers and his ‘restrain, contain, maintain’ programme is carried out in the Resthaven Home for Dreamslingers in Almiro, Texas.

 Aria is one of the young residents there whose dreams are researched. When they wake, the dreamslingers can safely unleash their Outbursts of pent-up emotions in chambers built to withstand the fires, hurricanes, ice storms and poisonous acids they generate. Understandably, there is public unease about the potential menace of dreamslingers. Worse follows when Jack’s Resthaven launch ceremony is hi-jacked by Tae, a Royal Slinger from the tiny hermit kingdom of Royal Hanguk (There, the Royal League trains teenagers to harness their outbursts and even bring dream beasts, such as Tae’s bloom dragon, Jaya, back from The Asleep).  Aria is blamed for the fiasco which results.

 With the future of her father’s work and the survival of Resthaven in jeopardy, Aria has to accept the challenge of King Lee Ogu and journey to Royal Hanguk, to compete in the Trials to be accepted as a Fellow. Her secret intention is to learn everything she can to help her father’s research, especially how dream beasts are controlled.

‘She was going to find the evidence she needed to prove that this reckless elite League was dangerous and plotting something sinister.’

 Hanguk turns out to be ‘nestled on an island inside Seoul’.  (Aria’s driver, Nam Changdo, compares it to Vatican City’s position within Rome.) Graci Kim has a powerful imagination so that her Hanguk is even more amazing than the Vatican. Menus there change according to the diner’s mood, while beds will adjust their comfort levels provided that they are instructed in rhyme.

 Aria passes a preliminary test of her powers, one of only a hundred trainees to do so. (Another successful candidate is Tui Walker, a New Zealander.) King Lee Ogu warns them that only twenty will become Fellows, so the competition will be fierce.

Aria and Tui are chosen to live in the Spring Palace of the bloom dragon during the Trials. The following two-thirds of the book follow Aria through the various challenges and her growing understanding of how the magical qualities of The Asleep can be used. Aria makes friends and some enemies. She also discovers that rather than being ordinary, she is truly exceptional.

 Dreamslinger is an exciting, sometimes alarming and often amusing adventure, with the bonus of a richly detailed dreamscape.

And dragons. There are lots of dragons.

 An unusual aspect of Dreamslinger is that the first edition (2025) 

used not one but two cover    

An Unusual aspect of Dreamslinger is that the first edition (2025) used not one but two cover illustrations, for different regions. Vivien To’s picture, used on the editions for the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, shows Aria in a hanbok (a traditional Korean dress, described on p.89) while a flying dragon circles her.  This illustration reflects Aria’s joint American and Korean heritage. The Disney Hyperion cover for the United States market, created by Jessica Fong, shows Aria riding on the back of a dragon; looking more like a young American superhero. The two covers may be seen to reflect different attitudes to DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion).

The book also provides maps (by Virginia Allan) of The Asleep and the Kingdom of Royal Hanguk, as well as Rachel Hamilton’s music for Aria’s lullaby.

The second volume in the series, about Aria’s novice training, is called Royalslinger.

Graci Kim’s website at www.gracikim.com includes Teacher Notes and printable resources.

 

Trevor Agnew 
18 May 2025  [Review 3768]

Note: In July 2026, Dreamslinger was longlisted for the annual DANZ Awards. The Diversity in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand Children’s Book Awards honours books for young people which recognise that not all young people are the same. Read more at The Sapling website: The DANZ Children’s Book Awards - The Sapling

 

A Manulele in a Mango Tree:
Le Manulele o nofo i le Mago:
A Pacific Christmas

 

A Manulele in a Mango Tree:
Le Manulele o nofo i le Mago:
A Pacific Christmas
Sarona Aiono-Iosefa
Ill. Steven Dunn
Translator: Le’autuli Sauvao, MNZ                    

Reed (2004)
Oratia (2025)
Picture book, Song book
Paperback, 32 pages
ISBN  978-1-99-004292-8

 

This cheerful (and sing-able) book provides a Pacific variant of the beloved Christmas song. It was originally published by A.H. & A.W. Reed in 2004, with the slightly daunting title, ‘Two Cans of Corned Beef and a Manulele in a Mango Tree: a Pacific Christmas’.  Today, 21 years later, it is a timeless classic, beloved across the Pacific.

Oratia have republished it in their Moana Oceania series, as A Manulele in a Mango Tree: Le Manulele o nofo i le Mago: A Pacific Christmas. It is a bi-lingual book with an English and Samoan text

The author, Sarona Aiono-Iosefa, a Samoan New Zealander, has provided some Polynesian elements in the traditional Christmas mix of gifts, first outlined in ‘A Partridge in a Pear Tree’. Her Pacific version begins with a manulele (flying bird) in a mango tree, followed by two cans of corned beef, three frangipanis, four rolls of tapa and five pairs of jandals.

Steven Dunn’s coloured wood-block illustrations are magnificent, particularly those showing people’s activities. The ‘nine hats a-hiding’ are seen providing their owners with cover at an Islands church service on a White Sunday, while the eight chiefs a-chatting, seven women weaving and ten hula dancers are all full of life. His hand-painted colours are strikingly beautiful, especially in the illustration of the three frangipanis.
The translation is by Le’autuli Sauvao [Le’autuli’ilagiTautua Malaetā Sauvao] MNZM

A glossary is not really needed; the illustrations leave readers in no doubt about what the six lavalava are, or what the seven women are weaving. Nevertheless, here is a bonus glossary.

Glossary for non-Pacific folk:
Corned beef – once an important element of modern Pacific Islands diet
Frangipani – a scented flower
Jandals – popular light footwear in New Zealand and Pacific (Ja-panese sa-ndals); flip-flops.
Lavalava – colourful cotton skirt, from Samoa
Mango – sweet, juicy tropical fruit
Manulele – a flying bird, a metaphor for freedom
Tapa – traditional cloth, made from mulberry bark

Trevor Agnew, written 13 May 2026 as an update of 2004 review

 

 

Castle Grim  Shaun Barnett

 

Castle Grim                                      

Shaun Barnett 
Scholastic (2025)
Novel, 246 pages,
Paperback
ISBN 978 0 77543 963 9 

 

Castle Grim is a lively dystopian novel of a bleak future where, following a global pandemic and the ‘Great Quake,’ small pockets of survivors scratch out a medieval-type existence. In this isolated world of the 22^nd Century, young Herman Reed might be thought to have a comfortable life in Nelson, prosperous with its fertile soils and temperate climate. His parents, Conrad and Ivy, sell old books, now a vital item in a world without electronic media. Herman’s Uncle Charlie, however, serves in the Nelson Mounted Police dealing with refugees from the drought and famine of other less fortunate regions.

‘A boatload of Wellington refugees arrived. Only five of those left aboard were still alive.’

 Shaun Barnett is a good storyteller who has created a convincing future society and stocked it with interesting characters. While his narrative usually stays close to Herman, it regularly offers the reader glimpses of other characters and their motivations. Thus, we see Commander Jensen of the ‘Broken City’ of Wellington, who is trying to defend the city and keep the inhabitants fed even when food convoys from the parched Wairarapa offer dwindling supplies. We also see the pirate partners, Raider and Squint, plotting a raid on Wellington, if only they can deal with Captain Chan’s well-armed ship. (It is worth noting that three out of the five characters named in this paragraph are female. Shaun Barnett is an equal opportunity writer.)

 It is into Wellington’s tense situation that Uncle Charlie and Conrad sail in search of their long-lost brother, Christopher. They have heard from a fisherman, Grip, that a mute lighthouse keeper at Pencarrow resembles them. Little do they know that Herman has stowed away on the yacht to join them on their perilous voyage, just in time for a Cook Strait storm.  

Herman’s quest for adventure is about to succeed but not in the way he had expected. Storms, pirates, wreckers and bereavement will be the least of Herman’s problems for he is about to enter Haewai Keep, the orphanage known as Castle Grim!

While Herman’s situation may seem grim at times, he also encounters friendship and loyalty.

Castle Grim is a fast-moving adventure, guaranteed to keep pages turning.  

An easily-missed but significant feature of this book is the sign outside the Reed family’s Golden Bookshop: ‘Books for All: Because Stories Matter’

 The dramatic cover illustration is by Craig Phillips, who also drew the useful map of the Wellington Harbour of the future.

 Note: Shaun Barnett, a ranger for the NZ Department of Conservation, was the author of several books about tramping and outdoor life. His manuscript for this book won the 2025 Storylines Tom Fitzgibbon Award but unfortunately Shaun died before it could be published. A graceful Acknowledgement by his widow, Tania Stanton. thanks all the people who helped bring Castle Grim to fruition, including his friends Ken and Juliet MacIver. A Note from his family includes a description of Shaun working on the drafts. ‘As Shaun wrote about Herman’s adventures, he would look out at the Pencarrow and Haewai lighthouses from his writing desk and imagine the scenes in the story.’

 

 Trevor Agnew 
9 May 2026 [Review 3825]

 Honu and Blue’s Sealife Clues
 Jez Smith  Ill. Ned Barraud

 

 

Honu and Blue’s Sealife Clues        
 Jez Smith  Ill. Ned Barraud
Scholastic (2025)
Picture book, 34 pages
ISBN 978 0 77543920 2 

           

 

 

 

This lovely picture book is a series of fishy puzzles told in verse. A companion volume to Pu and Ru’s Bird Beak Clues (2024), it features Honu, a turtle, and Blue, a Kororā or Little blue penguin. These two seafarers provide witty banter and some terrible word play (beloved by young readers) while Jez Smith poses his puzzles in verse.

The layout of Honu and Blue’s Sealife Clues is crafty. On each of the odd pages, Jez Smith offers a four-line verse mystery for readers to unravel:

‘This curious creature is called a horse,

but it swims with fins, not hooves of course.

It has no mane to swoosh and swish.

Because this horse is in fact a fish.’

Turn the page and the solution is revealed in both words and pictures. The seahorse is an easy one to guess but Honu and Blue also pop up with their facts and jokes, which make the newly-obtained information easy to remember.

‘Seahorses are rellies of pipefish and seadragons’

The stars of the book include the Paddle crab, Fairy tern, Longfin eel, Maui’s dolphin, snapper, octopus, Royal albatross, Orca and Great white shark [Mangō taniwha]. Of course, there are also entries for the Leatherback turtle [Honu] and the little Blue penguin [Kororā]. Māori names are provided for all entries.

 Talented wildlife artist, Ned Barraud, has created dramatic colour pictures of the creatures both above and below the water. The first page for each creature is craftily designed so that only a hint of its identity is given. Thus, the baby fur seals are concealed by the waterfall where they are playing. [This scene is a popular New Zealand tourist attraction, near Kaikoura.] Guess what the octopus hides behind.

Honu and Blue also offer a couple of pages of practical advice on how young readers can help protect the sea and its inhabitants. For example, dolphins are susceptible to a disease spread in cat droppings: ‘Don’t flush cat poo down the loo, it spreads disease into the seas,’ warns Honu.

Designed by Vida Kelly, Honu and Blue’s Sealife Clues, is a beautiful and cheerful introduction to some of the creatures found in the sea that surrounds us,     

 

 Trevor Agnew 
5 Mar 2026 [Review 3824]

At Home on the Farm Ned Barraud

At Home on the Farm   
Ned Barraud                                          

At Home on the Farm

 Ned Barraud 

Scholastic (2025) 

Picture book, Paperback, 24 pages 

 ISBN 978 1 77543 909 7 

 ‘At home on the farm, it’s as dry as a bone.’ 

Ned Barraud, already renowned as an illustrator, has written an enthralling account in verse of a farm in the grip of a drought. His account moves across the parched farm paddocks, like scenes from a film, showing the various animals and birds and how they cope with the heat. 

‘At home on the farm, the dogs’ work is done. Now they are snoozing out in the sun, itching and scratching, in the heat of the day. while blowflies are buzzing about where they lay.’ 

Of course, Ned Barraud’s illustrations are a perfect match for his lyrical words. Each double-page spread shows a typical group of animals or birds responding to the heat of the day. The horses and sheep shelter from the sun in the shade of trees. The magpies are strutting on the bone-dry paddock. A cat hunts mice in the hayshed and a red admiral butterfly lands by some gorse blooms. A shade-seeking hare shelters behind a fencepost. 

The story opens with a kāhu (harrier hawk) flying above the farm at dawn, silhouetted against the blazing sun. ‘Against a fierce sun kāhu circles alone.’ 

The conclusion comes at evening as the hawk soars before a dark bank of clouds sweeping towards the farm. ‘The skies open up and …FINALLY … it pours!’ 

At Home on the Farm offers an original approach to a familiar topic, enabling young readers to experience the extremes of weather and the change of seasons. Its magnificent illustrations offer readers an inviting open door to a vividly depicted landscape. 

Young readers may get their first inklings of the impact of climate change by reading this book. 

 Trevor Agnew 
 3 June 2025 [Review 3779]

 

Susan Brocker Eye of the Dragon              

 

Eye of the Dragon                  
Susan Brocker
Scholastic (2025)
Young novel.
Paperback, 120 pages
ISBN 978 1 77543 686 7
Ill. Isobel Joy Te Aho-White

 

 Thomas (13) has problems. Not only does he stutter when he’s stressed but he also faces bullying at school. Ever since a fishing accident with his father, he has had a mortal fear of the sea. His new step-father, Tim, doesn’t like him.  Sometimes it seems that Thomas’s only friends are his classmate Huhana and his dog Lucy. Walking on the beach with Lucy, Thomas investigates some strange noises and lights in a cave. What he finds is an injured dragon, which reminds him of a song his mother used to sing to him. [Hint: Google ‘Puff the Magic Dragon lyrics’]

When Thomas tells Huhana about the dragon, she decides it must be a taniwha, so Thomas (and the reader) learn about taniwha and their eating habits. Huhana helps Thomas to gather food (kumara and vegetation) for Puff, as Thomas has named the dragon. Thomas treats the dragon’s injuries, pulling out the branch which had impaled her. Then he finds Puff can communicate with him. It is the beginning of an unusual partnership.

Susan Brocker is a skilled writer, so she keeps the tensions between Thomas and the school bullies rising. There are also some lively comic moments. For example, it turns out that dragons are frightened of mice.

 Susan Brocker’s descriptions are gems. Thomas is enthralled by how soft Puff’s hide feels when he is perched on her neck. ‘Even though she had a coat of green scales, they were soft like silky peacock feathers.’

 There are also some subtle hints embedded in this exciting, fast-moving story. (Young readers will soon work out their significance.) Thomas seems to lose his stutter when he is around Puff. Huhana never enters the dragon’s cave. Nobody but Thomas sees Puff.  Puff certainly acts to protect Thomas, but sharp readers will spot that only Thomas actually sees Puff. How then is it that Thomas is able to fly on Puff to spot the environmental destruction threatening his home-town? 

 When Huhana reminds Thomas about the role of taniwha as ‘Kaitiaki – protectors of the land’, it is clear that action is needed. Can Thomas conquer his fears and measure up?  The conclusion is poignant but satisfying.

The striking cover illustration of Puff is by Isobel Joy Te Aho-White. Her magnificent conception dominates the cover with its golden eye. A smaller version decorates the chapter headings.

Trevor Agnew 
12 Mar 2025     [Review 3744]

 

 

Rākau: The Ancient Forests of Aotearoa  Ned Barraud 

 

  

Rākau: The Ancient Forests of Aotearoa     

Ned Barraud   
Te Papa Press (2025)
Picture book
Hardback, 52 pages
ISBN 978 1 99 107206 1   

  Ned Barraud’s skill as an artist is matched by his ability as a writer. With the assistance of specialists from Te Papa (The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa) he has created a magnificent picture book about New Zealand’s forests. He begins with a brief illustrated overview of the ancient forest and the changes brought by Māori and European settlers.

The main body of the book shows the various major trees, from tawai (beech) to rimu, tōtara to matai, rewarewa to karaka. Each illustration is supported by interesting facts, examples of use and sayings. Kahikatea, for example, intertwine their roots for stability, resulting in the Māori saying, ‘Rite tonu he whānau ki kahikatea rākau. Family is like kahikatea trees.’

The tōtara has a large illustration of a carved canoe, while smaller illustrations show the tōtara bark’s use as torches and pātua baskets.

Although listed as 48 pages, Rākau actually has 52 pages if you count the two stunning, unfolding tree portraits, each over 50 cm tall!. The kauri is, of course, represented by Tane Mahuta, while the other portrait is of a rata vine which has outlived its host tree and become a forest giant itself. 

As well as the trees, the illustrations show the birds and insects and animals which play their part in the forest world. The bushes, ferns and fungi are shown as well, along with the process of forest regeneration. Native trees which are commonly seen, even in cities, including kowhai and tī kōuka (cabbage tree), are given their due. Even the honeydew of the beech forest is explained.

Ned Barraud’s text is endlessly interesting and carefully matched to the illustrations. He also provides brief retellings of favourite Māori tree legends, particularly ‘Rata and the Totara Tree’

The design of this book is impressive and two useful glossaries are included. The result is an appealing and useful picture book, which is also fun to read.

 

Trevor Agnew 
4 August 2025   [Review 3787]

 

 

Turkey Hurly-Burly 
Annelies Judson  Nikki Slade Robinson    

 

Turkey Hurly-Burly 
Annelies Judson,
Ill. Nikki Slade Robinson 
Scholastic (2025)
Picture book
Paperback, 32 pages
ISBN 978 1 77543 910 3 

‘A rampaging herd of turkeys,           

that numbered in the thirties,

rampaged towards the field of play.’

Turkey Hurly-Burly is a funny picture book which cries out to be read aloud.

When Miss Burton asked her class to suggest a classroom pet, she did her best to reject unsuitable creatures such as lunch-eating rats and book-eating goats. Unfortunately, she agreed to a pair of turkeys, Jake and Jenny. Eggs were laid and, in due course, there were lots of turkeys; in fact, ‘a flock, squashed beside the office block.’ When the fence gave way under the extreme turkey pressure, the entire flock of turkeys ‘went storming straight towards the children playing games outside.’

What follows is a comic catastrophe of epic proportions, fought out on the playing fields of New Zealand.

‘It was a turkey-teacher-student free-for-all.’

Not only does Annelies Judson relate a war story worthy of Homer; she also spins her saga in verse. (There is also a very appropriate and funny conclusion, which is more than Homer managed.) Best of all, Turkey Hurly-Burly scans perfectly, so that it can be recited, declaimed or sung.

Then there are the colour illustrations.  Nikki Slade Robinson has created marvellously exaggerated turkeys - all throbbing wattles and bulging eyes – generating mayhem as they forage for school lunches. The pictures portraying the charge of the turkeys are eye-wateringly funny.

The result is an ideal book for reading aloud – or even singing aloud.

 

Trevor Agnew 
9 Aug 2025    [Review 3789]

Violet and the Velvets: the Case of the Missing Stuff

 

 Violet and the Velvets:
the Case of the Missing Stuff                    

Rachael King
Ill. Phobe Morris
Allen & Unwin (2025)
Novel, 204 pages, Paperback
ISBN 978 1 991006 98 1

 

‘We’ll wipe the floor with you.’

Violet Grumble, the narrator, is always ready to meet a challenge head-on. Take the BandChamps, for example. When she and her mother see how few girls take part in the local primary band competitions, Violet is determined things will be different this year. She wants more girls to be playing instruments.

 When too many volunteers turn up, it is Violet who solves the problem by suggesting they form two bands.  The unexpected result is that Violet finds herself bringing together a nervous band of unskilled players and inspiring them to perform and sing at competition level. The result is very stressful for Violet and very funny for her readers.

 The characters are all interesting. The teacher theoretically in charge is Mr Saunders, memorably described by Violet as ‘like a six-foot-four stick of bamboo bending in the wind.’ Experienced player and all-round gloater, Brayden soon has all the best players in his band, while Violet has the left-overs for Violet and the Velvets.  Lexie is shy and reads Nancy Drew all the time, Jack thinks music should be fun, Mo hopes a melodica is a cool instrument, Ruby-May is only interested in ponies, and Aggie thinks they should be called Aggie and the Velvets. Membership of the band becomes fluid as tempers flare and plots develop. Then, as the title puts it, their stuff starts to go missing.

‘Hey! Where are my drumsticks?’

‘You see?’ I say.‘First the bass strings, then the bass and now your drumsticks! Somebody is trying to sabotage us!’

What follows is a very funny account of Violet finding how to bring together a band of unskilled players and inspiring them to make music.

‘After all, you only need three chords to play a song … how hard can it be?’

 As the crucial final performance draws near, Violet and the Velvets, feel they have lost the contest but a cliffhanger ending sets them up for the second novel in the series, Violet and the Velvets: The Case of the Angry Ghost.

 The author, Rachael King, played bass in The Cakekitchen and five other bands, so she has used her own band experience to create a lively and convincing musical atmosphere. Her declared aim is to show girls that ‘they don’t have to be singers or proficient musicians to be in a band.’

 Phoebe Morris has provided lively illustrations, brilliantly bringing each of the characters to life. The design is by Kate Barraclough.

 

The lyrics of the hit song ‘Too Shy’ are provided at the end of the book. Or you can listen to a performance of it on Rachael King’s website: Violet and the Velvets - Rachael King

 

Awards:
Winner, Storylines Notable Book Award 2025
Shortlist: NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults 2025
 

Note: In July 2026, Violet and the Velvets: The Case of the Angry Ghost was shortlisted for the annual DANZ Awards. The Diversity in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand Children’s Book Awards honours books for young people which recognise that not all young people are the same. Read more at The Sapling website: The DANZ Children’s Book Awards - The Sapling

Trevor Agnew [Review 3834]

  

Violet and the Velvets:
The Case of the Angry Ghost 
Rachael King    Phoebe Morris

 

Violet and the Velvets: The Case of the Angry Ghost
Rachael King Ill. Phoebe Morris
Allen and Unwin (2025)
Novel, paperback, 208 pages
ISBN 978 1 99100 699 8

 

‘You only need to know three chords to play a song.’

Violet Grumble, the self-confident, guitar-playing 12-year-old from Oakleaf Primary School has plenty of ambition for her euphoniously-named band, Violet and the Velvets. In the first book of the series, Violet and the Velvets: The Case of the Missing Stuff (2025), Violet and her friends solved the mystery of who was sabotaging their band’s efforts to get to the BandChamps, an inter-school contest.

Now, the Velvets are one of fifteen bands competing at the BandChamps national finals in the Royal Theatre (a craftily-disguised version of Christchurch’s historic Theatre Royal), which is packed with excited young musicians and their teachers.  When the excitement is interrupted by sinister whispers of ‘get out get get out’, rumours of the ghost of a ballerina spread among the bands.  Lexie (bass) is reading a Nancy Drew story about a haunting, The Ghost of Blackwood Hall, so she urges the band to emulate Nancy Drew by ‘searching for clues and interviewing witnesses.’ The band members are happy to copy Nancy’s detection work but Lexie does have reservations about Nancy’s misadventures.

‘She almost drowned in quicksand though.’

Violet once again proves a confident clue-seeker and suspect-interviewer, as well as a cheerful narrator. With the tension of the sound-check and impending performance, everyone is on edge.

‘Excitement wobbled around us like jelly.’

When further ghostly happenings trigger panic, Violet keeps her head and even manages to safely extinguish a backstage fire. Who is to blame for the worrying events? Is there perhaps a real ghost? Or is it another attempt to sabotage the Velvets? Meanwhile, the band contest must go on and Violet has stage nerves as she prepares to sing the band’s Hallowe’en song, Angry Ghost. The conclusion is satisfyingly theatrical and enjoyable.

This witty, fast-moving adventure is a pleasure to read with neatly-sketched characters and lively dialogue. The music teacher, Mr Saunders, returns and even has a hint of romance with another teacher. Less welcome is the return of irritating braggart Brayden Jones, who is thoroughly unpleasant to everyone but who unintentionally makes everyone else seem kinder and more caring by contrast.

Brayden: ‘Hey, why are you in a wheelchair?’

Dee: ‘I find that it really helps me … to mind my own business!’

Co-operation and recognising other people’s merits are the keys to success in Violet’s world, and if seeing girls succeed puts Brayden’s noise out of joint, all the better. The atmosphere of a band contest is well created, clues are examined, witnesses are interviewed and red herrings are rejected in a thoroughly enjoyable story. There are also some great band names, from Go Dog Go to Shimmy Shimmy.

The illustrations and decorations throughout the book are by the talented Phoebe Morris. Her black-and-white illustrations give visual identities to all the characters. Particularly cute is the picture of the two teachers at the precise moment when their eavesdropping students discover that their first names are Duncan and Jojo.  

I was fortunate enough to hear the author’s world premiere vocal-and-guitar rendition of Angry Ghost. Readers who wish to listen to Violet and the Velvets’ version of Too Shy and Angry Ghost will find them on the author’s website:

rachael-king.com/fun-stuff

 

Trevor Agnew 
14 Sep 2025    [Review 3793]

 

Violet and the Velvets: The Case of the Viral Video
Rachael King  Phoebe Morris        

                                                                                                            
                                                                                                            

                                                                                            

Violet and the Velvets: The Case of the Viral Video
Rachael King (2026)
Ill. Phoebe Morris
Allen & Unwin
Novel, 213 pages
Paperback
ISBN 978 1 991142 75 7

 

‘When did playing music become so hard?  We used to just jam and have fun!  Now it’s all about being “perfect” and it’s sucking the joy out of everything.’

 

This is the third volume of the deservedly-popular Violet and the Velvets series. The Case of the Viral Video answers the unavoidable question. Are the unlikely rock musicians who make up the garage-band, Violet and the Velvets, going to win the BandChamps National?

 

Writing in her usual, slightly breathless, present tense, Violet assesses the obstacles in their path, ‘Tension hangs in the air thick as the smell of old socks.’

Violet, Lexie, Mo and Jack are all jumpy, nervous and tired as they prepare to compete with groups from all over the country. Along with the other finalists, they will also be taping a song in a recording studio, so that their music videos can be screened on TV’s Fire Show.  So, lots of pressure.  Violet’s determination to achieve perfection rattles the other band members. Resentment soon erupts into rebellion and Jack even walks out.

With her usual flair for metaphoric language, Violet records feeling ‘squirming otters in my belly.’

 A whole new layer of expectations is loaded onto the bands’ shoulders when they confronted by the stylists who want to change their clothing and make-up. ‘We need movement,’ shout the stylists, ‘Drama! Flair! Colour! Sparkle!’ They also want Mo to wear a dress.

  A very funny battle of wills to preserve their band’s unique identity follows. Backstage pressures, viral videos and even AI add to the irritating mix. Even more annoyingly, the band’s sneaky foe, Brayden Jones has not been idle (although his efforts produce an unexpected result). It is understandable that by the time that the Velvets get into the TV studio, Velvet sees ‘Two big cameras crouch like velociraptors about to attack.’

 

This book is an amusing and highly readable account of a nervous band meeting the challenge of sinking from being favourites to becoming the underdogs. Fortunately, Mum, aware of her daughter’s tendency to perfectionism and stress, has given Violet good advice.

 The artist, Phoebe Morris, continues to provide her amusing line illustrations of the various young musicians as they navigate the highs and lows of the contest and its assorted entrants. My favourite pictures show the various costume ‘improvements’ offered by the staff of The Fire Show, as well as the band’s less than enthusiastic response to them.

The designer, Kate Barraclough, has also distributed Violet’s doodles (of everything from bombs and rats to bees and stars) into the margins of the appropriate pages, helping make this junior novel a pleasure to look at as well as to read.

 

Volume 4, The Tall Stranger, is on the slipways, ready to confirm the band’s new motto: ‘Playing music is supposed to be fun!’  

 

Note: In July 2026, Violet and the Velvets: The Case of the Angry Ghost was shortlisted for the annual DANZ Awards. The Diversity in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand Children’s Book Awards honours books for young people which recognise that not all young people are the same. Read more at The Sapling website: The DANZ Children’s Book Awards - The Sapling

 

Trevor Agnew

14 July 2026  [Review 3850.]