On the Brink Maria Gill

On the Brink:

New Zealand’s Most
Endangered Species (2019)

Maria Gill
ill. Terry Fitzgibbon
New Holland
32 pages,
Paperback NZ$25
ISBN 978-1-86966-518-0

What a useful book this is.

Maria Gill’s information books for young readers always give a clear, well-organised overview of their subject. ‘Endangered’ is a term that is used loosely, so young researchers often find it difficult to research endangered species because of the torrent of information that pours over them.

On the Brink takes the sensible approach of first defining terms and then looking at the ‘Top Five’ endangered birds, fish, marine mammals and insects.

Take the ‘Top Five Endangered Reptiles, Frogs and Bats’ as an example. They are a frog, two bats a gecko and a skink. For each one, we are given their full name: (Hamilton’s frog, Pepeketua, Leiopelma hamiltoni) as well as their size (37-47 mm), population estimate (300) and a map of their location (Stephens Island). A clever code gives more information. (NC, E means that Hamilton’s frog is endemic, nationally critical and in danger of immediate extinction.) Along with a handsome portrait (artwork by Terry Fitzgibbon, author of Coo-Coo Kereru) each animal has a half-page description of their habits and habitat.  (Guess who lives in moist rock crevices and hatches straight from the egg?) Then there is a rather grim list of things that menace the creature’s survival. As well as the usual suspects (rats, cats, ferrets, stoats) frogs have the added danger of the fungus that is killing frogs world-wide. 

Reading this book, it seems amazing that these creatures have survived at all. Bats have to contend with sparrows, rats, mice and wasps at their roosting sites, as well as the routine threat of logging, fires and predators. There are only 200 to 300 Chesterfield skinks (NCE) living in a paddock bordering a sand dune near Hokitika and they are hunted by mice, rats, ferrets, cats, hedgehogs, weka and possums. (Yes, it’s being fenced.) The Muriwai gecko has the added threat of kingfishers and 4WD vehicles – and no fence.

Maria Gill always finds the perfect phrasing to help the reader visualise the animal. The body of a long-tailed bat is 5-6 cm, or ‘slightly larger than the size of an adult’s thumb,’ and it can travel at 60 kilometres per hour -‘that’s faster than your parents’ car when driving you to school.’

While species such as the fairy tern (45), kokopu (250) and Canterbury mudfish (unknown) are reasonably well known, some of the endangered animals listed are obscure. Insects such as the Mokohinau stag beetle, Tekapo ground weta, Te Paki stick insect, Alpine grasshopper and Forest ringlet butterfly simply don’t have the cuteness appeal of the kakapo (160) or Maui dolphin (55).

The text is supplemented by fact boxes, offering such gems as: ‘The Good News: Five birds that were once thought to be extinct have been found!’

The closing pages of Maria Gill’s books are always interesting and outward-directed and On the Brink is no exception. Here she has pointed out how much can be achieved by one person (such as Don Merton with the black robin) or by people working together (such as the children who campaigned against single-use plastic bags). She has included two pages of suggestions for ‘stamping out refuse waste’ and ‘planting for the planet,’ which young people can work on in their home, their garden or their community.

There is also a good list of websites which young conservationists will find useful. The Glossary uses admirably simple and clear language, e.g. ‘endemic: native, found nowhere else but that one country, indigenous.’  

I particularly admire the Index, which uses sub-headings such as Fish, Predators and Reptiles to make research easier.

On the Brink is a lively and readable book which will inspire a new generation of enthusiastic Kiwis with sympathy for our endangered creatures and an awareness of how to do something about it.

Trevor Agnew

10 July 2019

Anzac Animals & The Treaty of Waitangi in Tauranga

The Treaty of Waitangi in Tauranga (2018)
(Te Tiriti o Waitangi ki Tauranga Moana)
Debbie McCauley, illustrated by Whare Thompson
Mauao Publishing (Tauranga), 48 pages
NZ$39.95  hardback ISBN 978 0 473 41214 2

Anzac Animals (2018)

Maria Gill, illustrated by Marco Ivancic
Scholastic, 64 pages
NZ$30  hardback  ISBN 978 177543 474 0

Two excellent non-fiction books for young readers have just been published, and should be on your shopping list for junior readers.

Anzac Animals is the most eye-catching of the two books. Maria Gill and illustrator Marco Ivancic have used the same clear, well-organised format as their award-winning Anzac Heroes, but here they are celebrating creatures rather than people.  The Anzac Animals of the titles are creatures which played a significant role in the wartime experiences of Australians and New Zealanders.

Some were beasts of burden like mules, donkeys and Beet Algar’s camel, which “smelled, spat and was often stubborn.” Some, such as the pigeons, carried messages. Others were mascots, like the many kangaroos taken to Europe and Africa. Dogs were common; the Maori Battalion had at least three. It will be the horses who will be the favourites. Maria Gill has selected Bess, who is immortalised in both the Troopers Memorial in Canberra and the Wellington cenotaph, and Bill, the waler who was buried at Gallipoli. Their lives and experiences are both fascinating.

I was surprised at the enormous range of creatures involved and also by the fact that so many of them survived the war. Marine Stupid, a highly intelligent macaque, served on two Australian warships, was at the surrender ceremony in Tokyo and retired comfortably to the Melbourne Zoo, where she had a baby in 1949. The longest lived is, of course, Torty, a Greek tortoise rescued by a New Zealand medical orderly in 1916, and still alive.

The text also sorts out the tangled history of Murphy the Gallipoli donkey, always a tricky matter but well handled here.

As well as the entertaining and lively biographies of the twenty selected animals, Maria Gill has also provided a brief overview of both world wars, along with accounts of veterinary services, and animal welfare concerns. A time line, glossary bibliography and maps are included.   

Marco Ivancic’s colour illustrations are realistic and attractive without being sentimental.

For young people who like going around quoting interesting bits from books, Anzac Animals has the story of Charles Upham sleeping on the floor because Mrs Rommel and her kittens were in his bed. Mrs Rommel was a cat.

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

 
Debbie McCauley’s first book, Motiti Blue and the Oil Spill (2014), took a local disaster (the wreck of the Rena on Astrolabe Reef) and used the resulting disaster and clean-up as a microcosm of international pollution and conservation issues. It was a brilliant example of a locally-produced, self-published book gaining national recognition.

Now she has repeated the process in The Treaty of Waitangi in Tauranga, by looking at New Zealand’s Maori-Pakeha relations by concentrating on exactly how the treaty of Waitangi has affected the Tauranga region.

It is not easy to pack two centuries of history into 48 pages, especially when they include events like Gate pa, but Debbie McCauley has done well. Not only has she written a simple bi-lingual narrative history (Maori translation by Tamati Waaka) but she has also provided a rich historical context with time-lines, fact-boxes, diary entries and brief biographies that bring history to life.

I like the way that we meet individuals and see how their attitudes were formed, so that the complexities of tribal allegiances, warfare and land negotiations become more comprehensible. Issues are carried right up to the present day.
A lot of information has been packed into this book, so some sections are in such small type that I had to use a magnifying glass. Younger, sharper eyes should be able to cope.

The book cries out for a clear map to show the relationship of the various pa sites, landscape features and settlements mentioned. The three maps provided are rather limited. Fortunately two of the first suggestions on the “Treaty Activities” page involve map drawing.

The index is excellent, and Whare Thompson’s pencil drawings add life to the pages. 

It is important to point out that this interesting book will not only be useful in the Tauranga area but will also be a superb exemplar for students of our history in all parts of Aotearoa New Zealand. My hope is that it will inspire young historians to start researching the finer details of what happened in their own region. This book has a great future.

 

Trevor Agnew

21 April 2018

Toroa’s Journey Maria Gill Gavin Mouldey

Toroa’s Journey  (2017)

Maria Gill 
ill. Gavin Mouldey
Potton & Burton
32 pages (with gatefold)
Hardback NZ$30
ISBN 978 0 947503 53 6
Paperback NZ$20
ISBN 978 0 947503 52 9

The magic of Maria Gill’s non-fiction books is that they consistently provide lively, entertaining reading. Give her a few facts and she’ll create a story. Toroa’s Journey is no exception.

In 2007 Toroa was the 500^th Southern Royal Albatross chick to hatch at the protected albatross
colony at Taiaroa Head, near Dunedin. A ranger fitted him with a tiny transmitter just before he grew his adult feathers.
Maria Gill has used her writing skills to take these facts and create not one but two books. One is a splendid picture book which tells the story of Toroa’s amazing endurance flights. Children can read this as a story about a bird’s awe-inspiring, seven-year journey. The other is a nature study book with fact-boxes packed with amazing information about albatrosses. My favourite is that Toroa’s grandmother raised her last chick when she was 60 years old.
Gavin Mouldey’s colour illustrations add another whole dimension to the story. He has captured the various moods of the giant birds, their surprising anatomy and their surroundings.

It is a sobering thought that the picture of Toroa encountering an ocean scrapheap of drifting plastic rubbish is actually a mixed media illustration, combining paint and actual plastic trash Gavin Mouldey collected from Kapiti Beach near his home. The highlight of the book is a 4-page fold-out showing Toroa in flight, with his three metre wing-span at full extent.  It is a show-stopper at any reading session.

There is a useful glossary.

Gavin Mouldey’s website is at: http://dittyboxblog.blogspot.co.nz/

Maria Gill’s website is at: https://www.mariagill.co.nz/
Toroa’s website is at: http://www.doc.govt.nz/royalcam

 

Anzac Heroes Maria Gill Marco Ivancic

Anzac Heroes            (2016)

30 Courageous Anzacs from WWI and WWII
Maria Gill; ill. Marco Ivancic           
Scholastic
Hardback, NZ$30
ISBN 978 1 77543 363 7

In an interesting example of trans-Tasman cooperation, Maria Gill has written brief biographies of thirty inspiring military figures from Australia and New Zealand history. The period chosen includes both world wars, so Gill was able to select a lively and interesting mix of the famous and less well known. From New Zealand, we have the likes of Bernard Freyberg, Nancy Wake, Richard ‘Dick’ Travis and Keith Park, while the Australians include Reginald Saunders, Albert Jacka, Olive King and Albert Knight.

While some of the thirty have world reputations, Gill has made sure that some of the less famous are represented, such as Dr Jessie Scott and Matron Evelyn Brooke. While the emphasis is on achievement, there is no attempt to gloss over the cost of warfare. Hugo Throssell, who won a VC at Gallipoli, suffered from nervous strain. In debt during the Depression of the 1930s, “he made the harrowing decision to end his life, thinking his family would be better off without him. He wasn’t the only returned soldier who would do so.”

 Each of the thirty heroes gets a double-page spread, which packs in an amazing amount of information. As well as the short biography and account of the subject’s military career, there is also a range of illustrations, an individual timeline, images of their decorations, and Flash Fact-boxes describing particular exploits in detail. (Aussie flyer Frank McNamara, for example, won the V.C. for landing and rescuing a downed pilot from Ottoman cavalry, a feat that reads like an Indiana Jones adventure) Some of the details are simply breath-taking. Leon Goldsworthy, having been rejected for the navy because of hammer toes, had his little toes amputated.  He passed next time, and went on to become the Australian Navy’s most decorated officer.

 Marco Ivancic has provided colour portraits of each subject and, thanks to the co-operation of WWII Re-enactment Group, he has managed to show them in the correct uniform and using appropriate equipment. This is a major improvement on the usual method of colouring up old photos. (Only a pedant would point out that the Bren Gun on the cover has its drum-sight on the wrong side.)  Anzac Heroes has many extra features that add to its value in the classroom and library. There are timelines for World War I and World War II, while coloured maps show the main theatres of operations in both world wars. As well as the usual Glossary and Index, there is also a set of coloured pictures of all the medals awarded to the thirty. Special sections describe and compare the Australian and New Zealand military organisation over the years, along with a rundown of military ranks. There is even a double page spread, “The Medics,” describing the work of the stretcher-bearers, surgeons, drivers and nurses.

Anzac Heroes is a well-researched and inspiring record of the achievements of our two nations in two world wars. The quality of its writing, the high standard of its illustrations, as well as its handsome presentation and solid cover, ensure that this book will have a long and useful life in homes and libraries.

Trevor Agnew

17 May 2016

Three new non-fiction titles for young readers

Play in the Garden: Fun projects for kids to enjoy outdoors  (2014) Sarah O’Neil, New Holland, 120 pages, NZ$34.99, paperback

ISBN 978-1-86966-413-8

Piggy Pasta and more food with attitude (2014) Rebecca Woolfall & Suzi Tait-Bradly, Scholastic NZ, 64 pages, NZ$19, paperback

ISBN 978-1-77543-216-6

New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame (2014)  Maria Gill, ill. Marco Ivancic, New Holland, 64 pages, NZ$24.99, paperback 

ISBN 978-1-86966-422-0

Three non-fiction titles are aimed at young readers’ special interests. All three provide interesting material and challenges.

Play in the Garden is gardening writer Sarah O’Neil’s invitation to young Kiwis to try their hand at vegetable growing. O’Neil knows her young folk, and while she has plenty of tips on how to grow vegetables, she also offers some intriguing activities to lure the reluctant into gardening. This book tells how to grow square cucumbers, create a 3-story bug hotel, and cook food using newly-cut grass. More conventional gardening techniques are not neglected; beans, carrots, pumpkins and potatoes are all here.

There are good suggestions for parents who want to capture young imaginations. For example a treasure map (made with onion ink) can inspire pirates to dig up hidden treasure (The harvest of a potato crop is a bonus.) Advice is given on how to make cornhusk people, a scarecrow, a bean tepee and wind chimes.  Colour photos are helpful.

Index. Glossary.

 

Rebecca Woolfall and Suzi Tait-Bradly operate the Little Cooks cooking classes for young people, and their book shows some of their techniques for making food preparation into fun. Piggy Pasta begins with eye-catching desserts like Dirt Pudding (made with brown biscuits and chocolate) and Exploding Orange Cake. Many of the recipes are for snacks, suitable for quick meals or the lunchbox, like Green Eggs and Ham Pie  or Jumin’ Mac & Cheese (a variant of macaroni cheese).  Revised versions of familiar dishes, such as muffins, nachos and meatballs, appear, although some have acquired eyeballs, so they can stare back. Young chefs are given plenty of food preparation guidelines, as well as tips on kitchen safety and hygiene.  Index.

 Maria Gill follows up her award-winning New Zealand Hall of Fame (2011) with a volume specialising in athletic achievements. New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame has brief biographies of 25 Kiwis who have achieved success in their field, from Russell Coutts (yachting) to Sarah Ulmer (cycling).  (Actually there are 26 athletes, because sailing champions Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie count as one.)  Each sportsperson is given a double-page spread with their personal details, sporting statistics, timeline and trophy board. There is a text-box for every sport shown. Each person has also provided a summary of their personal training programme. This can be a quite daunting indication of the level of commitment required; Bevan Docherty, Olympic triathlete trains 35 hours a week, and swims, runs and bikes six times a week as well as doing exercises at the gym.

The most outstanding feature of the volume, of course, is the portfolio of cheerful full-colour caricatures by Marco Ivancic.  Also included is a section where young readers can create their own Sport Plan with a check-list of achievable goals.

Glossary. Bibliography. Index.

 

Trevor Agnew, August 2014