Spider Games: In the City of Spies Brian Falkner Spider Games: In the City of Spies Bateman Books (2026) Novel, Paperback, 280 pages ISBN 978-1-77-689-167-2 What happens to an ordinary Kiwi teenager who is suddenly tossed into a world of espionage, violence and murder? Nick is 15 and his autism makes him socially awkward and shy but he does his best to ‘act normal’. It is 1987 and Nick, the story’s narrator, is accompanying his Grandpa Joe on a trip to Germany in order to spread Grandma Josie’s ashes in her homeland. As they enter the Hotel Adlon, the reader will realise that Nick notices everything. He even counts the chairs and tables in the lobby. More significantly, Nick spots a man who is paying close attention to his grandfather. Mystery deepens as Grandpa Joe leads Nick deep into the back streets of Berlin. Nick is puzzled when Grandpa Joe keeps looking in shop windows. ‘I’ve noticed he’s not really looking through the window, but at the reflection of the footpath and road behind us. But why?’ Readers of Brian Falkner’s Katipo Joe series of wartime espionage adventures will have recognised Joe as a successful spy back in the days of Nazi Germany. Nick learns of his grandfather’s war service with amazement: ‘Grandpa Joe killed his first person at the age of fourteen and his second, a Gestapo agent, at fifteen.’ Years have passed but there are plenty of people in Berlin who remember Joe. To Nick’s horror, Grandpa Joe suddenly vanishes. Has he been kidnapped? Because of his keen observation skills, Nick uncovers his grandfather’s hiding place for his tradecraft equipment. Assisted by a young local waitress, Rejhana, Nick begins to search for Joe but soon finds they are being pursued by very persistent and menacing people. An alarming chase across the icy rooftops of Berlin is only the beginning of Nick and Rejhana’s perils. Brian Falkner’s novel is fast-moving and full of action, with a cast of ruthless killers in hot pursuit of the two teenagers. Nick finds he has unexpected resourcefulness and Rejhana (survivor of a Serbian massacre) has hidden depths. Together they show initiative and courage in their efforts to save Joe’s life. While Spider Games is full of violent encounters, there are also some very funny moments in the story, many of them the result of Nick’s nervousness around self-assured people. When he first encounters Rejhana, Nick is calm and confident while he is correcting her quadratic equations but bungles all his attempts at normal conversation. Hoping to praise her pigtails, he says, ‘I like your piglets!’ (In a moving foreword, written in Berlin, Brian Falkner describes his own experience of autism and adds, ‘I wondered how I would react if it was my actual teenage self in one of those daring adventures? I wrote Spider Games to find out.’) Young readers who like this story of spying and double agents will find that each chapter heading is the wittily altered title of other tales of espionage, which they can enjoy once they have decoded titles ranging from ‘The Night of the Jackal’ to ‘The Spy who Stayed out in the Cold.’ Trevor Agnew 24 Jan 2026 [Review 3816]

 

Susan Brocker Eye of the Dragon              

 

Eye of the Dragon                          

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

 

 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 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]

 

 

 

 

    

 

Tails of Tangleby Gardens 3   
Sue Heazlewood   Jane Smith        

 

Tails of Tangleby Gardens 3                                 
Sue Heazlewood   Ill. Jane Smith

Aukram Publishing, Ohoka (2024)
Illustrated story, Recipe book
Hardback, 170 pages
ISBN 978 0 47372 315 6

 

Spot the food in this story:

‘Marmalade had made her delicious paprika chicken and a scrumptious apple crumble for dessert.’ Before the story goes much further, the young readers encounter a picture of Marmalade the rabbit preparing the chicken dish and Violet the mouse pouring custard over a generous helping of crumble. Recipes are included. Suddenly a mealtime crisis erupts when naughty Basil the bunny has a tantrum and runs out into the snow. A search party of animals has to be formed to rescue him. Saved from drowning in an icy pool, Basil is reinvigorated by a mugful of Chinese chicken and corn soup (with recipe). And that’s only Chapter One.

 

This charming combination of storytelling and cooking has now reached its third instalment. Tails of Tangleby Gardens 3 once again mixes an illustrated animal fantasy with a recipe book. The result is a thoroughly enjoyable adventure involving talking rabbits, frogs, dogs, cats mice and hedgehogs, with a food bonus. The playhouse (cubbyhouse to Australian readers) at Tangleby Gardens has developed from being a home for a pair of refugee rabits, Marmalade and Montgomery, and has become a bustling multi-species sanctuary for a wide range of homeless creatures. And they all enjoy good food.

The animals face the challenge of winter with aplomb, using Leo the poodle’s balloon to fly in nourishing meals to some hungry local mice. With warmer weather, the whole Tangleby family of animals goes on a camping holiday to Foxton Beach, where the little blue penguins, Mr and Mrs Winterbottom, have made a new home. This jaunt enables the animals to enjoy a road trip in their camper-van as well as some amusing adventures and misadventures at the beach. Peking Duck’s big feet do cause mishaps such as falling into the chocolate cake, but they also prove useful in rescuing Basil and Belle from the perils of surf and wind.

The attractive colour illustrations on almost every page are by Jane Smith, who has created a full array of well-dressed animals. Her husband Neil Smith’s tasty food photographs have also been populated by animals, so Violet mouse is shown decorating her Jelly Slice with pansies.

 

A great deal of thought has gone into the organisation of this book. There is a double-page pictorial identification guide to the cast of characters, to remind readers that Louie is a cat, Hemi is a frog and Basil and Belle are rabbits. The recipes have two indexes. One offers the usual alphatical order, while the second has them listed in page and chapter order. The recipes themselves are well set out with clear instructions and ability levels that range from one strawberry (‘Very easy’) to three strawberries (‘Some skill required’). Each recipe has its own QR code, so that there is no need to take this handsome book into the food preparation area.

There is a two-page reference guide to liquid and weight measures, oven temperatures for cooking different meats and a list of alternative names for various ingredients.

Tails of Tangleby Gardens 3 is an ideal gift for fond grandparents to hand out. 

 

Trevor Agnew 
2 Dec 2024    [Review 3732]

 

 

Calum the Chameleon   
Danni Rae  Evan Heasman

 

 

Calum the Chameleon                             
Danni Rae Ill. Evan Heasman 
Little Love/Mary Egan (2025)
Picture book, Paperback, 24 pages
ISBN 978 1 0670875 4 8 

Calum the Chameleon is much more than a handsome picture book. Following the style of its predecessors, Kara the Kākāpō (2022) and Harry the Hermit Crab (2023), this easy-to-handle book packs a lively introduction to eight of the world’s ecosystems into its 24 pages. Writing in cheerful verse, Danni Rae introduces each ecosystem, from rainforest to savannah:

‘Tundras are treeless, they’re cold and they’re dry…

… Most of the year, the land is covered in snow,

But summer brings wildflowers bursting up from below.’

 She uses a nomadic chameleon, cutely named Calum, [short for Calumma parsonii], as a friendly guide to each landscape and its wildlife. The text invites readers to search for individual creatures. Search is the operative word.

‘A chameleon’s natural colour helps them avoid being seen.

Can you find Calum, exploring the forest of green?’

Calum is not the only one using camouflage. In the rainforest, it is not easy at first to distinguish between the Emerald Tree Boa and its leafy surroundings. Fortunately, silhouettes of such locals as the boa, toucan, butterflies, tree frog and jaguar are also provided to make identification easier for young eyes.

This brings us to the pictures. Once again, Evan Heasman’s full-page colour illustrations are spellbinders: finely detailed, richly coloured and often amusing. In his Savannah illustrations, for example, he has secretly added a dozen giraffes.  Now that Te Papa has a specimen on display, it seems that every New Zealand book about ocean life must include a giant squid.  Calum has found one. Also to be found in these pages are examples of the isopod, caracal, nautilus, pika, japalura lizard, and the lilac-breasted roller. Not to mention the well-concealed Parson’s chameleon known as Calum.

At the end of the book, there are three fact pages which explain the importance of ecosystems, as well as spilling the beans on what chameleons really get up to. The design is by Anna Egan-Reid.

Calum the Chameleon is a user-friendly introduction to the rich variety of nature and a warm invitation to young readers to continue their research and extend their knowledge of the natural world. And play hide-and-seek with Calum.

 

Trevor Agnew 
2 Jan 2026   [Review 3815]