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 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.’

 

So Young Cho’s colour illustrations 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]

 

Wild Life: An Animal History of Aotearoa  Philippa Werry       
 

 Wild Life: 
An Animal History of Aotearoa                    

Philippa Werry (2026)
Oratia
Non-fiction, 100 pages         
ISBN 978 1 99 004298 0 

 

Where would we be without Philippa Werry? For years she has provided New Zealand children with story books, picture books and, above all, history books.

Her latest offering, Wild Life: An Animal History of Aotearoa, does exactly what its title says; it looks at how our country’s birds, insects and animals got here. We also learn how they survived or didn’t survive.

Werry knows how to appeal to young readers. Her account begins with a 14-year-old schoolboy finding the fossil remains of trilobites, some 505 million years old, near Motueka in 1948.  When Zealandia separated from Gondwanaland it carried a population of ancestral birds and insects, some of whose evolved descendants are, remarkably, still with us. The word ‘remarkably’ is highly appropriate because Philippa Werry’s account of what happened to our wildlife in recent millennia shows a high casualty rate. Some creatures, including theropod dinosaurs, burrowing bats, giant penguins and freshwater crocodilians now exist only as fossils.

 

The arrival of humans has brought further changes to our natural world, especially over the last few centuries. The Māori relationship with Aotearoa’s birds, reptiles and sea creatures is deftly sketched in, complete with the arrival of new mammals, kiore and kūri. Early contact by Europeans seeking a southern continent, seal skins or whale oil, introduced the deadly Norwegian rat, as well as (the slightly less deadly) cats, dogs, pigs and goats. Settlers from Europe introduced familiar farm and domestic animals for agriculture and transport bringing further challenges to native wildlife.

Anyone who has read a 19^th Century newspaper will also know of disastrous importations which further upset the balance of nature. Sparrows and rabbits seem to have been introduced for nostalgic reasons. Ferrets, stoats and weasels were supposed to end the rabbit problem but snacked on native birds instead. The resulting mixture of ecological tragedy and comedy is nicely captured in Werry’s text. In 1883, Walter Buller spots a huia and records, ‘watching this beautiful bird and marking his noble bearing … before I shot him.’

 

A great strength of this book is its coverage of various native species, with engaging profiles. Who can forget Old Blue the Black robin? Other popular animals including Opo, Bess, Shrek, Phar Lap, Happy Feet and Pelorous Jack remind us of how involved New Zealanders are with animals.

 

A splendid feature of Werry’s account is the way she includes young people in the conservation story. Barrytown school-children alerted Robert Falla to an unknown species of Black petrel.  Kahn Coleman was only twelve when he helped save a colony of peripatus. Less successful was 15-month old Huia Onslow whose mark appears beneath his father, Governor Onslow’s signature on an 1892 warrant to protect huia.

 

Best of all, this book asks (and answers) lots of questions. ‘Who names the Animals?’ produces a lively couple of pages, including some Tolkien surprises.

 

Werry has been indefatigable in ferreting out [sorry] vivid vignettes of some incredible efforts by scientists and conservationists to ensure the survival of many species. An entomologist, Bev Holloway raised a small colony of newly discovered batflies in her airing cupboard, feeding them on mashed bananas and yeast! Aola Holloway studied cave wētā in the depths of the Waitomo caves, using a stick to ward off water rats!

 

In Wild Life Philippa Werry has given us a positive and readable book, full of lively examples of interesting creatures, with a balanced account of valuable conservation work and the threats still facing our wildlife. There are masses of relevant illustrations and an index.

P.S. Good news: the Canterbury Knobbled Weevil is not extinct.

 

Trevor Agnew

 

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

 

The Ghost House  Bill Nagelkerke

The Ghost House                        

Bill Nagelkerke
Cuba Press (2022)
Novel, 180 pages, Paperback

 

The Ghost House

"He watches the boats and their crews, wide-eyed. He had no idea that all this activity existed so close to home."

This young adult novel will appeal to young readers as a ghost tale but they will also find it a lively story about discovery, memories, gaining independence and awakening to the world.

Told in the present tense, The Ghost House follows young David Parkhouse as he copes with the after-effects of his life-threatening medical condition. Frustrated by the slowness of his return to a normal life, David leaves his home "in a mad run" and finds himself in Christchurch’s Red Zone.

(Following Christchurch’s earthquakes, several unstable areas were cleared of their houses and fences, and now remain as re-zoned urban pockets of open grassland, trees and bushes.)

Bill Nagelkerke has created a carefully constructed world of ambiguity and mystery within the unsettling but familiar world of the Red Zone.

Amongst the greenery near the river, David spots an old house, hemmed in by trees and bushes.

"Indeed, the house is old, splendidly intact, but also splintered, bruised, wrinkled with age."

The house, with its protective screen of trees, seems real enough. "…Kauri weatherboards and rimu panelling, a ceiling with a high stud, a steep front gable… a large but plain bay window patterned with pieces of coloured glass that are held in place by leaded strips… "

Yet David is uncertain. He feels summoned by the house, but he also has some doubts about it, A mirage? A dream? A ghost house?

Fascinated and drawn by the old villa David begins regular forays into the Red Zone, meeting some of the foragers, bee-keepers and community gardeners who frequent the region.

Things begin to change for David when he encounters Agnes Bright, the elderly owner of the house, and a forthright speaker. "Are you a squatter? A vagabond? A prowler? A thief?," she demands of David, "Tell me. I’m curious to know."

Agnes doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and she has a poor opinion of young David’s manners.

"Did anyone ever tell you its rude to gawp?, " she snaps at him. Nor is she impressed by his acumen. "Your lack of knowledge in this age of ignorance doesn’t surprise me."

David wonders if Agnes is wacky and worries about his own safety but since he is also very curious about her house, he stays to listen to Agnes’s stories about life in its heyday, with boating parties coming to picnic on the river bank. "Now the land has reverted to what it was before," concludes Agnes, "Earthy and green and empty of houses. A wonderful irony don’t you think?"

There are plenty of ironies in the world David is gradually rediscovering; anomolies created by the quakes. But has he seen everything as it really is? He certainly gains a better idea of himself as he delves deeper into the mysteries surrounding the old house. The alarming list of his symptoms which David compiles at the beginning of the story is amusingly shortened by the end. David also manages to come to a better understanding of his poetry-writing sister, Amber, who resents have to ‘baby-sit’ him.

It is heart-warming to find that Ros and Jamie, two characters from Bill Nagelkerke’s first YA novel, Old Bones (2006), turn up briefly in this story. It was Ros who helped Jamie to find pleasure in boating on the Avon River and, sure enough, the loving couple who paddle up to David in their orange kayak have their own fond memories of the Red Zone to add to the mix.

The conclusion is subtly written and moving but also deeply satisfying.

Bill Nagelkerke’s mastery of words is a constant delight. The authority figures who strike alarm throughout the story are recognised as the lanyard people from the ID tags they wear. It may be the best term from this decade to enter the dictionaries.

The cheerful black and white illustrations throughout the novel by Theo Macdonald do the old house justice.

 

Trevor Agnew

 

 

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 3826]

 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]