Piano Rock: A 1950s Childhood  Gavin Bishop

 

Piano Rock
A 1950s Childhood
Gavin Bishop 
Random House (2008)
Memoir, 120 pages, Paperback
ISBN 978 1 86979 010 3 

 
 

The entry for Gavin Bishop in the Continuum Encyclopedia of Young Adult Literature begins: A steam train is travelling across a golden tussock plain. Inside its freight van is a family with their furniture. Seated on their own kitchen chairs, the family look out through the van’s open doors at the passing mountain scenery. Piano Rock starts with the same scene, etched in white on black. It portrays one of Bishop’s earliest memories, travelling by train from Invercargill to the tiny lakeside settlement of Kingston.

In Piano Rock Bishop, whose brilliant art work means his skills as a writer are sometimes overlooked, evokes the years he spent there (1949 to 1954) in a world of coal ranges, school concerts, Tilley lamps, wash-house coppers, vegetable gardens, Guy Fawkes bonfires and jam-making.

Those interested in Bishop’s artistic development will learn how he was inspired by a visiting art-teacher at their 12-pupil school, and by a visiting sign-writer who took time off from a pub mural to paint Mickey Mouse figures on Bishop’s gumboots.

The illustrations show how Bishop is continually developing his style, or in this case styles. He uses black-and-white scraper-board for the dramatic train illustrations and the evocative endpapers. A touch of colour enlivens his stunning picture of migrating eels seen at sunset and his self-portrait walking through a frozen landscape in his painted gumboots and home-knitted balaclava. Many of the other illustrations are in colour, including a perfect re-creation of an illustration from the Janet and John readers.

Piano Rock is a superb evocation of growing up in the 1950s.

Trevor Agnew

 

  

 

 

Maui and the Sun: A Māori Tale 
Gavin Bishop

 

Maui and the Sun:                                

A Māori Tale
Gavin Bishop
North South (1996)
Picture book, 32 pages
Paperback
ISBN 1 86943 381 9 [English language edition] Maui and the Goddess of Fire
ISBN 978 1 86943 381 9 [English language edition] Maui and the Goddess of Fire
ISBN 1 86943 519 2 [Māori language edition] Ko Maui raua ko te atua o te ahi

 

Maui, the mischievous trouble-maker, is a popular figure in Māori and Polynesian traditions. In this retelling by Gavin Bishop, Maui and his brothers find the day is too short to complete their fishing.  Maui plans to slow the sun down to give them more time. He shows his brothers how to make ropes and nets from flax. They then trap the sun as he is sleeping. Maui beats him fiercely until he learns the sun’s secret name Tama nui te Ra (Great Son of the Day) and thus is able to slow him down.

The sun now travels too slowly and causes a long drought, so Maui ropes him and fastens him to the moon. As a result, when the sun sets, the moon rises. The sun’s speed is corrected. So from then on, Maui had light both night and day.

This is a good book to read and a great book to show to a class. Gavin Bishop’s prose is simple and clear, giving a sense of drama to the story. His pictures are skilful and dramatic, with the huge sun dominating the double-page spreads of the battle. Māori themes and motifs appear in many of the illustrations. Maui, his brothers (and the sun) all wear moko tattoos appropriate to their high rank.

Gavin Bishop, who both retold and illustrated Maui and the Sun based his version on one told to Governor George Grey in the 1840s by Wi Mahi te Rangi Kaheke of Rotorua. Maui’s trick of fastening the moon to the sun comes from a Ngati Awa tribe version.

 

A companion volume is Gavin Bishop’s Maui and the Goddess of Fire: A Māori Tale (1997)

Trevor Agnew

 

 Maui and the Goddess of Fire: A Māori Tale

Gavin Bishop

 

Maui and the Goddess of Fire:                    

    
A Māori Tale
Gavin Bishop
Scholastic (1997)
Picture book, 32 pages
Paperback
ISBN 1 86943 381 9 [English language edition] Maui and the Goddess of Fire
ISBN 978 1 86943 381 9 [English language edition] Maui and the Goddess of Fire
ISBN 1 86943 519 2 [Māori language edition] Ko Maui raua ko te atua o te ahi

 

Produced in a similar format to Gavin Bishop's earlier Maui and the Goddess of Fire, is a retelling of Maui’s greatest feat when, like Prometheus, he brought fire to people. As well as retelling a favourite folk-tale of the South Pacific, Gavin Bishop has also created dramatic (and sometimes amusing) illustrations.

 Maui, the trickster, puts out all the village cooking fires to see what will happen. Soon nobody can cook food. Maui’s mother gives Maui instructions to go to the home of his grandmother Mahuika, the fire goddess. (Everybody else is too frightened to go near her.) Mahuika gives Maui fire, in the form of her fingernail. He throws the fire into a stream and goes back to ask Mahuika for another nail. Maui does this again and again, but when he asks for her last nail, the fire goddess curses him and sets everything on fire.

 

Maui escapes the angry flames, first as a bird and then as a fish. When the sea begins to boil, Maui begs for help from Tawhiri-matea, the god of wind. He provides a rainstorm which puts out the fire, and Mahuika flees back to her home, tossing her last fire-seeds into our trees. And so, fire became available to all.

‘The people of Maui’s village soon discovered the seeds of fire hiding in some of the trees in the forest. And from that day on, the fire was released by rubbing together dry sticks from the totara, the patete, the pukatea and the kaikomako.’

Gavin Bishop’s pictures, like his stories, are delightful adaptations from traditional Māori material, enlivened by his professional skills. Look, in particular, at the double-spreads showing Maui tossing away the fire-nails (pages 14-17) for their subtle repetition. The transformation of Mahuika from granny-figure (page 11) to bird-headed monster (page 18) to all-conquering supernatural force (pages 20-23) and back to granny (page 28) is brilliantly done.

Gavin Bishop has based his version on the story told to Governor George Grey by Wi Mahi te Rangi Kaheke of Rotorua. He says, “It is very similar to the versions told by the Māori people of the Ngati Awa and Waikato tribes from the North Island of New Zealand from which come some of my ancestors”.

In 2001 a Māori language edition, Ko Maui raua ko te atua o te ahi, was published by Scholastic.  The Māori translation is by Katerina Mataira.

 

Trevor Agnew

 

                                            

Bruiser

 

Bruiser  Gavin Bishop

 

Bruiser                                                    

Gavin Bishop
Random House, 2011
Picture book, 32 pages, 
Paperback
ISBN 978 1 86979 449 1

 

Get out of my way! I’ve got a motorway to build! 

Bruiser is a massive digger, a machine with a mission. Bruiser’s story begins with a counting sequence following his usual run of work. 

On Monday he ploughed through five hills. 

As the amount of work builds up, so does the destruction. 

On Wednesday he tore up three forests, and flattened a paddock of daffodils. 

And so it goes on (like a mechanised version of Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar).

Then on Friday Bruiser gets stuck in a muddy ditch. His vibrations dislodge a magpie’s nest and its chick and for the first time Bruiser is forced to re-examine what he is doing. He has a change of heart and starts swerving around hills instead of ploughing through them.

 Bruiser’s reformed behaviour is very funny and quite touching. A young reader spotted that Bruiser’s exhaust smoke rises in small heart-shaped clouds, whenever he looks at the magpies. Another young reader demanded to know HOW Bruiser pulled open the tab on a can of oil. The correct answer is that Bruiser is a very clever machine.

 With its whizzing wheels and flying mud (and language to match) this is a delightful book to read aloud.

Gavin Bishop’s bold illustrations give Bruiser tremendous impact on the page, with massive black tyres and orange body work. (Nevertheless, Bruiser has a clearly delineated face capable of a range of expressions.) The rocks, flowers and trees he moves about are skilfully shaped from textured paper. Darker paint is applied to each succeeding scene as Bruiser gets stuck in failing light and carries out the rescue of the magpie chick in near-darkness.

Bruiser is dedicated to the rebuilders of Christchurch after the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011 to which is added, Look to the future boldly. Remember the past gently.

Trevor Agnew, 2011

 

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

 Mister Whistler  Margaret Mahy  Gavin Bishop

Mr Whistler  Margaret Mahy
Ill. Gavin Bishop
Gecko Press (2012)
Picture book, 32 pages, Paperback
ISBN  978 1 877467 91 2

This picture book was published just after the death of Margaret Mahy (1936-2012) but Gavin Bishop was able to show her its proof sheets a few weeks before she died. The same proof sheets were displayed at her funeral and memorial services which celebrated her life and achievement.

Mister Whistler is a little gem of a story about an absent-minded young man catching a train. Gavin Bishop’s evocative water colour illustrations capture both the atmosphere of the 1950s and Mister Whistler’s ebullient personality. He is so lively that he even sings and dances in his sleep. When he goes to catch the train to Whistlestop, he is so happily humming and dancing that he misplaces his ticket. (Delighted readers will spot the missing ticket.) Searching thoroughly, Mr Whistler removes his clothes in the opposite order to which he dressed earlier in the morning. Coat, jacket, waistcoat, shirt and trousers are all removed and searched. “No ticket! Nothing!” 

All through the complex process, Mr Whistler has been dancing and, to his surprise, people on the station platform have filled his hat with money. “What dancing!” they cried. “What energy! What grace!” 

Finding his ticket, Mr Whistler tucks it in his mouth while he swiftly puts all his clothes back on again. Unfortunately, in the excitement of getting on the train, Mr Whistler swallows his ticket. 

“Wasn’t it a lucky thing he’d earned all that money with his wild dancing?”

Gavin Bishop’s imaginative illustrations are a magnificent series of variations on a theme as Mr Whistler dresses, undresses and dresses again. His movements are marvellous and echo the musical notes which twine their way through the pictures. Every aspect of a 1950s wooden railway station’s architecture has been immortalised in a simplified form. (Railway stations had gardens in those days, and this one has lovely pansies.) 

Young readers who look carefully at the advertising placard on the platform will spot the lady in the poster responding to Mr Whistler’s dancing. They will also be intrigued to see who is seated in front of Mr Whistler in the train.

Mr Whistler is a wonderful farewell to Margaret Mahy.

  Trevor Agnew, 2012  [Review 2584]

Bill Nagelkerke's Emily

 

Emily’s Penny Dreadful 
Bill Nagelkerke

 

Emily’s Penny Dreadful (2016)                
Bill Nagelkerke
Paperback, 146 pages

Penny Dreadfuls were cheap and disreputable fiction magazines, offering lively stories of highwaymen, murderers and other desperadoes, popular among boys and young men in the Victorian times. When the home of Emily’s Uncle Raymond burns to the ground, the only thing the grumpy writer manages to save is a single, 150-year-old Penny Dreadful.
Emily (9) is precocious; she knows this because Uncle Raymond has not only told her so but taught her how to spell it. Emily is also resentful, because she has only had her own bedroom for two weeks. Now she has to move in with her sister Sibbie, to make room for her homeless aunt and uncle. Tensions rise. Emily and Uncle Raymond are soon sparring over grammar, spelling and metaphors. 

“People who write books are always grumpy,” concludes Emily, “They can’t help it. They suffer from brain-strain, Dad says.”

Gradually Emily realises how serious a matter it is for a writer to lose his computer, back-up discs, notes and drafts. Uncle Raymond, of course, is full of self-pity, “I shall very likely never write another word,” he moans.

After Emily borrows the Penny Dreadful, she is inspired to try writing her own. Her first attempts – reproduced in full as a story within a story – are the highlight of this book. Emily calls it The Devil’s Element – a reference to the phosphorus once used for matches – and her first sentence reads, “It was a dark and story night.” Naturally Emily has her own Thurberish justification, “Reading a book in bed means it’s a story night. So there.”

Young readers will enjoy seeing how some of the characters in the tear-jerking saga resemble Emily’s family. The plucky heroine Miley is particularly thinly-disguised. Sibbie is furious when she recognises her own words. The astute reader will also spot that Emily has learned from Raymond’s grudgingly-given advice. In her story, the villainous kidnapper, known only as Pork Pie, pauses to write down new words in his vocabulary notebook. 

It’s all great fun, and Emily is about to rescue Miley from slave labour in a match factory, when writer’s block strikes. Both Emily and Raymond have run out of ideas. Now they are forced to swallow their differences and co-operate to get Miley to freedom and Emily’s book to a happy ending.
The result confirms Raymond’s admission that “All writers are liars and thieves,” (a line possibly purloined from Jack Lasenby) and brings events to a satisfactory conclusion.

Emily’s Penny Dreadful may indeed be dreadful but it is dreadful in a very enjoyable way. Bill Nagelkerke has created a light-hearted book which not only contains a guilty secret and an adventure but also provides a practical guide to young writers who want to tell a story of their own. This book is, in the very best sense, dreadful fun.

Trevor Agnew, 23 December 2015

Emily, the Dreadfuls, and the Dead Skin Gang
Bill Nagelkerke

 

Emily, the Dreadfuls, 
and the Dead Skin Gang                Bill Nagelkerke (2017)
Novel, Paperback, 168 pages

 

“I can read my stories to you,” said Emily…“They’re Penny Dreadful type stories, full of heroes and villains and exciting getaways and things like that.”

Emily is back!
This novel, Emily, the Dreadfuls, and the Dead Skin Gang, sees the return of would-be writers Emily (9) and her grumpy Uncle Raymond, a comical couple, who first appeared in Emily’s Penny Dreadful (2015). Having lost his computer in a fire, Uncle Raymond is still trying to re-start his writing career, while Emily has been inspired by one of his old Penny Dreadfuls (popular Victorian magazines, full of lurid crimes and dramatic escapades) to write her own story, Dead Skin.

Although Dead Skin is supposed to be a co-operative effort by Raymond and Emily, it is Emily who does most of the work. This adds to the fun because both writers are strong-minded and thin-skinned. Chapters of Dead Skin form a story within the story.
“Another audacious burglary!”

The Emily series is constantly amusing as the reader moves from one narrative to another, especially when Emily adapts events around her (and ‘borrows’ ideas from Uncle Raymond and her friends).
Events in the main story quickly turn up in a similar but funnier form in Emily’s hand-written manuscript. After Emily and her three best friends try to form a gang called the Dreadfuls, we see the Dead Skin gang vowing to capture the burglars who “use dust as a weapon as well as dangerous and threatening words.”
The various authors all play fair with their readers. The clues are all present, although craftily concealed, red herrings are seen, and shivers run down spines. Somebody even gets to say, “Beware, this is a trap.”

This story is a cheerful adventure, which gently spoofs both the Penny Dreadful style of adventure and the later efforts of Enid Blyton. It also provides positive encouragement and a good example for young people with writing potential.

Trevor Agnew
31 August 2017

 

 

 

Kiwi Health Heroes  
Caitlin Timmer-Arends & Rebecca Waddell
Illustrator: So-Young Cho

 

Kiwi Health Heroes                      

                                               
Caitlin Timmer-Arends 
& Rebecca Waddell,
Illustrator: So-Young Cho
Bateman (2026)
Non-fiction, 72 pages, Paperback
ISBN 978 0 77689 168 9 

 

 

 

Kiwi Health Heroes is an account, written in a simple chatty style, introducing the lives of some thirty people who have made a change in our health and medical services. Each brief biography is used as an exemplar of determined people overcoming obstacles. The aim is to provide inspirational models for young readers. While some of the heroes are familiar figures – such as Nurse Maude and Peter Button – most of them are relatively unknown. The authors have researched well and found a wide range of high-achieving Kiwis in the health sector. I was impressed by what these people have accomplished. Doctors, like Peter Snow who identified Tapanui Flu, and innovators, like Colin Murdoch who invented the disposable syringe, are obvious choices but the authors have also honoured such unsung heroes as lab technicians, pharmacists and administrators.

 Best of all, they have included a forgotten group, the patients. They begin with 19^th century missionary children one of whom was dosed with a mixture of rhubarb, water and burnt shells and another whose hare-lip was treated by a ship’s surgeon. Then there are more recent young patients who suffered from diabetes, alopecia, ADHD and Kawasaki disease. Each account is interesting and always acknowledges the professional assistance and family support involved.

 It is unfortunate that this otherwise very useful book has no index but it does have a set of factual notes about each hero on the Credits pages. On the plus side every entry has a pick-a-path feature inviting readers to follow their interest through the pages. ‘To learn about another amazing and strong woman turn to Tupou’s story on page 58.’

 The colour illustrations by So Young Cho are a delight. Each person’s picture captures their personal achievement visually, so Dr Elizabeth Gunn is shown in her wartime Captain’s uniform giving the side eye to a tooth, a reminder of her encouragement of dental routines at health camps. Ehsan Vaghefi’s eye-scanning work is exemplified by a band of cheerful cartoon eyeballs queuing for a scan.

 

This review originally appeared in the March 2026 issue of Magpies magazine.

 Trevor Agnew, 4 Feb 2026 [Review 3818]