Some Gavin Bishop Classics

 

Bidibidi  Gavin Bishop

Bidibidi  Gavin Bishop
Oxford University Press (1982)
Scholastic (2014)
Picture book, 36 pages
ISBN 978 1 77543 192 3

 

 

Gavin Bishop’s first published book is a classic of the South Island high country, the adventures of a rebellious ewe. On a ‘hot and windless day in the mountains’ Bidibidi the sheep finds she is dissatisfied with life. She leaves the flock and heads up into the hills in search of the rainbow.

As she moves through the Canterbury high country, Bidibidi meets typical creatures (a kea, a trout, a sheep-dog) who help her in her quest. Eventually she finds a bearded old man, a strangely symbolic figure, ‘dressed in clothes the colour of the hills’. This is Rainbow Jackson, who lives in the mountains and makes the rainbows with a hurdy-gurdy. Bidibidi is happy mto stay with him. When he grows old, Bidibidi takes over his work, ‘I’ll make the rainbows now,’ she says.

This is a lovely picture book, with lots of jokes and the symbolism of Rainbow Jackson to think about. The various creatures depicted all have strongly individual voices and this makes it a good story to read aloud. Already Gavin Bishop's appreciation of New Zealand architecture can be seen in his depiction of the run-down remains of a country hotel.

An identical Māori language edition was published by Scholastic in 2001. The Māori language translation by Apirana Mahuika.

Note: Piripiri is a New Zealand native plant which grows in a mat with clinging burr seeds. This Māori name was often anglicised as Biddybiddy or Bidibidi. Biddy is a disused term for an old woman, so Bidibidi’s name is doubly evocative.

In 2014 Scholastic re-issued Bidibidi in a sumptuous large format paperback edition.
Although his Mrs McGinty and the Bizarre Plant was published in 1981, Bidibidi (1982) was actually the first book that Gavin Bishop wrote and illustrated. It was appropriate that its re-issue came just as Gavin Bishop was named an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) for services to children’s literature in the 2014 New Year’s Honours List.

Awards:
Winner: Noma Concours Prize for Children’s Picture Books (Japan) 1982
Finalist: NZ Post Children’s Book Awards: Picture Book of the Year 1983

 

 

Trevor Agnew, 2014

The Three Billy Goats Gruff  Gavin Bishop

 

The Three Billy Goats Gruff  
Gavin Bishop
Scholastic (2003)
Picture book, Paperback, 32 pages 

ISBN 1869435877

 

Gavin Bishop provides a faithful retelling of the original Norwegian folktale of The Three Billy Goats Gruff, as set down by Peter Christian Asbjornsen (1812-1855).

Gavin Bishop’s colour illustrations of the three goats are superbly rendered, with his usual combination of imaginative flair and skill. The goats are completely convincing, especially their eyes. He also creates magnificent mountains and a convincingly realistic narrow bridge made from a single tree trunk. His troll is thoroughly unpleasant, right down to his tombstone teeth, and thoroughly deserves his downfall.

This is a splendid companion to Gavin Bishop’s interpretations of Chicken-Licken, Mr Fox and The Three Little Pigs.

Trevor Agnew, 2003

A Apple Pie  Gavin Bishop

 

A Apple Pie
Gavin Bishop
Oxford University Press                                

Alphabet book (1987)
32 pages
0 19 558164 4 [English edition Hb]
7 50072 531 0 [Chinese edition Pb]

 

This is an alphabet book based on the traditional nursery rhyme but with remarkable pictures which have given it classic status. There are dancing ducks, exercising elephants, kissing kangaroos and racing rabbits. Gavin Bishop’s skilfully detailed illustrations are a delight. The be-shawled crying cow reaches for a box of tissues, while the octopus opening the pie stretches over three pages.

For those who don’t recognise the animals, their names are concealed upside-down in a corner of each page.

 An ideal format for small hands.

 An identical Chinese language edition was published in 1995 by Zhong guo shao nian ertong in Beijing.

  Trevor Agnew

Books about Matariki

15 books about Matariki

Chosen and described by Trevor Agnew, 24th June 2022

1. Matariki, Melanie Drewery, Bruce Potter (ill) Reed (2003) Puffin (2016) 

The whole family go down to the beach for a bonfire before dawn. They cook kumara (sweet potato) and wait for the Matariki star-cluster to rise over the horizon. Nanny tells the children several stories and legends of Matariki. ’Some people say that Matariki is made up 

of the seven houses of the gods, 

and that people’s spirits go there when they die’ said Nanny, wiping tears from her face. They eat their kumara and bread by the fire on the first morning of the Maori New Year.

This is a good story for showing celebrations within different cultures. The children ask their mother which of the many Matariki legends they should believe. ‘Well,’ said Mum, ‘Think of the story that feels right in your heart. That is the story for you.’

Bruce Potter’s pictures of the stars and the family on the beach are dramatic.

Note: Matariki is also known as the Pleaides, a small cluster of stars. From a New Zealand viewpoint, Matariki vanishes in the east about mid-April, then reappears about the end of May or later, above the north-east horizon, before dawn. The return of Matariki marks the beginning of the Maori New Year. Traditionally the Maori counted seven stars, sometimes described as Matariki and her six daughters. The smell of the food prepared by the watching people was said to revive Matariki, who was weak and hungry after her journey in the darkness.



2. Celebrating Matariki Libby Hakaria, Reed (2006)

This splendidly readable book uses the Matariki constellation as a framework for a range of information about the stars, Maori seasons, fishing, hunting, gardening and legends.

Matariki, known to the Greeks as the Pleiades, marks the beginning

 of the Maori year, when it rises above the horizon in early June. Traditionally the first full moon after the rising of Matariki was a time for feasts and celebrations and the hunting and preserving of birds. A wide range of activities, including telescope-making, kite-flying and cooking are included. (The recipe for Kumara Chowder is excellent.) The book’s design is attractive, with clear double-page spreads, and good use of colour and fact-boxes. The text is well laid-out and very readable.

In a nice touch, the Japanese name for Matariki, Subaru, is noted with a picture of a New Zealand rally team in their Subaru. Several songs about Matariki are included in an accompanying CD, and the lyrics are printed in the book in both English and Maori.

This book fills a gap in libraries and schools, providing background material for fictional books on Matariki. At the same time Celebrating Matariki is so attractively presented that it can be read for simple enjoyment.



3. Glow Worm Night Don Long, Tracy Duncan (ill.) Reed (2004)

This book is about a family observing the Maori traditional New Year, marked by the first appearance of the group of stars, Matariki. A young girl tells how she goes with her father and brother into the nearby bush late at night. They switch off their torches and look at the stars. 

Dad points out Matariki the Pleaides).

After that, everyone looks for glow-worms. 

Then, there they are – glowing along the stream. Glow-worms! Puratoke. They see some nocturnal creatures, such as the morepork (native owl) and freshwater crayfish. 
Later Mum gives everyone Milo and tucks them into bed. ‘Sweet glow-worm dreams,’ she whispers as she switches off the light.
As Tracy Duncan’s handsome colour illustrations make clear, Dad is Maori and Mum is Pakeha (non-Maori). Some of the dialogue is in Maori, as when Dad says, Tino makariri before everyone puts coats on to keep out the cold (makariri). The context and the illustrations always make the meaning clear to non-Maori speakers.
Tracy Duncan’s illustrations always reward careful study. There are creatures, such as the Puriri moth to be spotted in the bush scenes, and books in the house. The young girl is reading Taniwha, by Robyn Kahukiwa.

Note: Matariki, also known as the Pleaides, is a small cluster of stars. From a New Zealand viewpoint, Matariki vanishes in the east about mid-April, and then reappears about the end of May or in June, above the north-east horizon, before dawn. The return of Matariki marks the beginning of the Maori New Year. Traditionally the Maori counted seven stars, sometimes described as Matariki and her six daughters.



4. Scoop and Scribe Search for the Seven Stars of Matariki  
Tommy Kapai Wilson,  Rob Turvey (ill)  Random House (2009)

Tommy Kapai Wilson was a newspaper columnist and children’s author who, in 2008, wrote a children’s action serial for the NiE (Newspapers in Education) newspaper educational supplement. It was revised and reprinted as a book in 2009. Scoop and Scribe search for the Seven Stars of Matariki is slim on characterisation but is certainly a fast-moving fantasy adventure. 

After a tip-off by a mysterious tohunga named Koro Whetu, ace junior reporters 

Scoop and Scribe are commissioned to seek the seven lost stars which form the constellation Matariki (also known as the Pleiades or Subaru).

Whetu guides the intrepid news-crew as they travel around New Zealand collecting the stars, which have been stolen by a kea (mountain parrot). A prominent local feature plays an important part in each chapter, so that the stolen statue of Pania of the Reef is recovered in Tauranga, while at Katikati, Donald Paterson’s sculpture Barry, (the only NZ statue to feature a newspaper) assists in the search.
With its many Maori characters and references, the story is accompanied by a Maori-English glossary and some factual material about Matariki and the Maori New Year.

Rob Turvey’s colour illustrations help make this an attractive presentation of a light-hearted fantasy quest, with an appeal for young male readers.



5. The Seven Stars of Matariki Toni Rolleston-Cummins Nikki Slade-Robinson (ill.) Huia (2008)

The Maori New Year is traditionally marked by the rising of the star cluster Matariki (also known as Subaru and the Pleiades). There are many Maori legends about Matariki.
This picture book retells a Maori tradition of Matariki’s origins, from the Bay of Plenty region of the North Island, and introduces some associated customs and rituals.

Mitai, who lived at Maketu (near modern Whakatane) had the power

 to change himself into a bird.

When his seven elder brothers were entranced by seven beautiful golden-haired women, they ignored Mitai’s warning that the seven women were really patuparaeihe (fairy folk).
Mitai overheard these women (who could turn themselves into fantails) plotting to starve their new husbands to death. He persuaded his brothers – now gaunt with hunger – to weave nets so they could capture their seven murderous wives while they were still in fantail form. Then Mitai flew up and handed the captive fairies over to Urutengangana, god of the stars, who placed them far from Earth. Once a year, the god allows their golden beauty to shine out. So at each winter solstice, the seven stars of Matariki appear above the horizon.



6. Little Kiwi’s Matariki 

Nikki Slade Robinson (text and ill) Duck Creek Press (2016)

The little Kiwi and her friends discover the joy of Matariki in this charming picture book. A beam of moonlight wakens little kiwi. The tiny kiwi realises the time has come and runs through the bush in the darkness. One by one, she wakens her sleeping friends and tells them to come and see something exciting. ‘Can you feel it coming?’

Before long she has a procession of creatures (including 

katipo spider, tui, weka and a family of ruru (owls)) trailing
behind her. Young readers will enjoy the parallel to Chicken-Licken.
Finally they all arrive at the beach and stand in the moonlight, as Matariki rises. They celebrate the New Year in the traditional Maori ways. For example, the katipo weaves a silken kite and flies it as part of the fun and games.
‘Matariki?’ said Tui, ‘Time for music and dance!’ He sang to the stars.
The author’s illustrations are stylised and streamlined representations of New Zealand plants and birds. They are also witty. The tiny owlets are all eyes and the weka (woodhen) is a speedster.

Little Kiwi’s Matariki also includes an explanation of Matariki – it's origins, traditions and how it is celebrated today. The constellation is shown, with the Māori names for each star. The story also offers what Nikki Slade Robinson describes as ‘a gentle introduction to te reo within the English text.’

Winner Best Picture Book of 2016 in the New Zealand Book Awards for Children.

Shayne's reading of Little Kiwi’s Matariki is available on YouTube  



7. The Seven Kites Of Matariki  Calico McClintock, Dominique Ford (ill.) Scholastic (2016)

The Seven Kites of Matariki is a modern tale about Matariki. It explains why the star cluster known as Matariki can be seen in an early morning winter sky, low on the eastern horizon.

In a Maori village, seven sisters are making kites to celebrate the arrival of the new year, just as their mothers and grandmothers had before them.
Each girl makes a different kite using local materials; 

the youngest sister, Ururangi makes ‘a many-

coloured kite with eyes of paua shell’.
The seven girls climb a hill to fly their kites and argue with each other about whose kite will fly highest.
‘My kite is the best.’
Unfortuately there is no wind on the hilltop and so the seven girls wrap themselves in their cloaks and wait beneath a giant puriri tree. Exhausted, they soon fall asleep. When the wind blows from the east, crying ‘Wake up. Wake up’ they don’t hear it. But their kites lift up in the wind, which carries them fluttering up into the sky.

Much later, Ururangi wakes up, sees her kite gone and awakens her sisters to tell them of their loss. Her six sisters look out into the morning sky and see their six kites flying there like the new year stars. The six head back to the village for kai (food).
Ururangi remains behind searching the skies for her kite. She is rewarded by being the first to see the seven stars of Matariki appear.

Dominique Ford’s beautiful illustrations capture the symbolism of the story well. Each kite is based on a traditional design and the colours are matched to the appropriate plants and shells used in making them.

Note: Ururangi is the Matariki star traditionally associated with the wind.

Shayne's reading of The Seven Kites of Matariki is on YouTube.



8. Tawhirimatea: A Song for Matariki June Pitman-Hayes, Kay Merewether (ill.) Scholastic (2017)

''Tāwhirimātea, blow winds, blow.’
This picture book (which doubles as a song book) shows the world through the eyes of a Maori family. As they gather shellfish, plant a tree, and have a family picnic, their words are reminders of the importance of the natural world about them. The seasons pass by, until the rising of the stars of Matariki signal the beginning of a new year.
‘Our universe is an amazing nature show.’

The second part of the book consists of the same lyrics, this time in Maori. 

‘Now, let’s sing it in Maori.’ 

The Maori words are by Ngaere Roberts.
‘Ko te ao nui, he Whakaari, miharo.’

The watercolour illustrations by Kat Merewether perform a double service. They show the family along with the birds, fish and plants in their natural surroundings but they also illustrate the traditional Maori pantheon of supernatural beings. Tāwhirimātea is the god of the winds, and his face appears, cheeks puffed, among the clouds, while Ra provides the sunshine and Ua the rain.

Each picture has its secret for young readers to spot.

On an accompanying CD, both versions of the song are performed by June Pitman-Hayes with her own ukulele accompaniment. There is also an instrumental track for young vocalists to sing along to.



9. Stolen Stars of Matariki Miriama Kamo, Zac Waipara (ill.) Scholastic (2018)

Stolen Stars of Matariki is a splendid picture book bringing some of the Māori traditions associated with Matariki into a 21st Century context.
Young Te Rerehua and Sam are visiting their grandparents at one of Canterbury’s important Maori traditional sites, Te Mata Hapuku (Birdlings Flat), a massive shingle spit and traditional eeling site. It is “a magical wild, windy place,” where they can gather agates on the beach. While Poua (grandfather) is gaffing eels at night, the children lie on the shingle with Grandma, looking up at the stars. One night Grandma spots something strange; there are two stars missing from the Matariki cluster. The patupaiarehe (fairy folk) have been stealing stars again. 

Their plan is to hide the stars beneath the

shingle, to be smashed to pieces, so they can wear the fragments on their clothing.
Using Grandma’s knowledge (and Poua’s gaff) Te Rerehua and Sam manage to infiltrate and outwit the mischievous patupaiarehe, and restore the kidnapped stars to their rightful place in the heavens.
Miriama Kamo has written a beautifully-styled story which has the simplicity and power of traditional folk tales.

Zak Waipara has produced magnificently atmospheric illustrations, with richly patterned and coloured backgrounds. He has successfully achieved the difficult task of mixing human and supernatural characters, as well as the technically difficult feat of portraying night-time activities. The result is a handsome and appealing picture book.

Stolen Stars of Matariki now joins a select mini-library of celebrations of Matariki.
These include Matariki (2003), Glow-Worm Night (2004), The Seven Stars of Matariki (2008), and Tawhirimatea: A Song for Matariki (2017).

In 2018 Scholastic also published a Maori language edition, Nga Whetu Matariki Whanakotia, with the Maori translation by Ngaere Roberts. 

Note: The rising above the N.E. horizon (in May-June) of the star cluster Matariki marks the Maori New Year. While it is common to count seven stars forming the cluster known as Matariki (or Subaru or Pleaides) some Maori identify nine. Their names are Matariki, Pōhutukawa, Waitī, Waitā, Waipuna-ā-rangi, Tupuānuku, Tupuārangi, Ururangi, and Hiwa-i-te-rangi. - info from Christchurch Library Website: The Nine Stars of Matariki

During the 2020 Covid-19 Lockdown, musicians from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra provided a musical background, as Miriama Kamo read The Stolen stars of Matariki aloud. The composer of the original music is Claire Cowan.
Website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWWcM0BWwwc

10. Together in Love: a Legend of Matariki  Xoë Hall (text & ill.) Teacher Talk (2018)

This picture book is a brief retelling of the Māori creation legend telling how the children of the gods Ranginui and Papatūānuku force them apart to let in the light and allow the world to flourish. Tāwhirimātea, god of the wind, angered by this action of his sibling gods, tears out his lightning-bolt eyes and throws them up into the sky. They explode to become 

the star cluster of the Matariki constellation, which 

is now the harbinger of the Māori New Year.

 

When Māori come together at new year, to celebrate, they tell this story to their children as their parents did before them.

Xoë Hall’s simple retelling is nicely matched by her colour illustrations. She uses bright colours and traditional Maori designs to make the various gods distinctive figures.

Shayne’s reading of Together in Love is available on YouTube:



11. Twinkle, Twinkle, Matariki Rebecca Larsen (text and ill.) Imagination Press (2019)
Whistle like the windy sky,
Sprinkle showers passing by.

This charming picture book is both simple and useful. Within an over-arching story format of three native birds (Hoiho, Pukeko and Kiwi) touring outer space in a rocket, it presents a series of simple songs (with a familiar tune) about such things as our food, how it is grown, the seasons, the weather,

and of course the stars that act as markers.

Rub your puku round and round
Food we’ve grown, caught or found.

Bright colourful illustrations by the author match the simple songs, which are provided in both Maori and English. Particularly pleasing is the spaceship which is decorated with Maori motifs, an inspiration for young kiwi astronauts.
A pictorial Glossary ensures that all is explained.
These songs scan well and provide young people with useful vocabulary. The words are provided in both English and Maori. (Translators: Tania Solomon, Justin Kereama).

A bonus CD has the songs sung in both English and Maori by Paul Inia. (Music by Richard Larsen.)

Twinkle, Twinkle, Matariki is the perfect book for a kindergarten or kura kaupapa sing-along in English or Te Reo.



12. The Promise of Puanga: A Story for Matariki  Kirsty Wadsworth,  Munro Te Whata (ill), Scholastic (2019)

‘Hana and Puanga did everything together.’
The Promise of Puanga is a picture book about two friends, and the fun they have together, watching new-born animals in spring, swimming in summer and riding their bikes through the leaves in autumn.
A problem in their area is that winter comes without warning, killing the un-gathered crops. When Hana speaks to Puanga about this problem and the need for a warning about the approach of winter, she gets an astonishing confession.

                                                                                                                 

‘I’m really a star,’ Puanga explained.
She has left her Matariki cousins in order to ‘explore and go on adventures.’
Hana has never seen the stars of Matariki because of the nearby hills and mountains.
Puanga summons Tāwhirimātea, the guardian of the wind, to take her back up into the sky to be a guardian for Hana’s village.
Tāwhirimātea promises that when Hana sees Puanga shining brightly in the sky, she will know it is time for the people to gather their crops. ‘She is our own special sign,’ says Hana. And so it happens.

Munro Te Whata’s splendid illustrations convey the friendship of the two girls in several charming scenes. His portrayal of Tawhirimatea is equally skilful, bringing together the colour of the night sky, the shape of the nearby mountain and the suggestion of clouds as his hair and beard.
The result is a lovely modern story based on traditional Maori elements.

This picture book, The Promise of Puanga, fills an unusual gap. In recent years some half-dozen New Zealand picture books have been published with stories about the cluster of stars Matariki, the rising of which signals the coming of winter and marks the traditional Maori New Year. What none of these books has mentioned is that in some areas along our western coasts, mountainous terrain prevents sighting of these stars (also known as the Pleiades, Mao or Subaru). The Promise of Puanga tells in story form how this astronomical difficulty was solved for the Maori people living in these western areas by the rising of Puanga (also known as Rigel).

There are Teaching Notes for this book at: The Promise of Puanga

A diagram showing Matariki and Puanga is at: https://teara.govt.nz/en/diagram/14080/puanga

In 2019 Scholastic also published an identical Maori language edition, He Purakau Matariki, Te Ki Taurangi a Puanga.



13. Flit the Fantail and the Matariki Map  Kat Quinn (text and ill.)  Scholastic (2021)

This third picture book in the Flit the Fantail series is written and illustrated by Kat Quin (formerly Kat Mereweather).
We’re lost! Flit and Keri cry.
Lured by the moonlight and unable to sleep, Flit has left the safety of his nest and ventured down to the dark forest floor. Flit hopes to capture the moonlight (in order to illuminate his nest). Through the trees, he can see the star cluster known as Matariki.
Tahi, rua, toru, whā, rima, ono, whitu, waru, iwa, he counts.

                                                                                                       

Keri the young kiwi, out foraging, offers to help Flit in his quest. They struggle through the bush and scrub and climb up high but are still unable to reach the moon. The pair realise that they are lost. How can they find their way home?
Ruru the owl sees them huddled together and points to the stars above.
Sometimes those special stars can even guide us home.

Flit spots the cluster of nine stars he saw earlier above his home. He carefully pecks nine holes into a kawakawa leaf in the shape of Matariki. Then the two birds make their way home, using the leaf map to follow the Matariki stars. They reach home just before the sun rises. Flit then has a bright idea. Perhaps he can capture the sun and use it to light his nest at night?

The charming colour illustrations are by the author, Kat Quin.

An identical Maori language edition of Flit the Fantail and the Matariki Map was also published by Scholastic NZ in 2021, as Ko Flit te Tirairaka te Mahere Matariki.



14. Daniel’s Matariki Feast  Linley Wellington & Rebecca Beyer (text)
Christine Ross (ill)  Duck Creek Press. English ed (2014); Māori ed (2015) and combined English Māori and Chinese pinyin ed (2021).

On his first day at kindergarten, Daniel is shy.                                              

He is puzzled that they will be having a feast 

because of the stars. 

Then he listens to some of the other children 

telling stories of the Māori New Year.

At home Daniel tells his mother about the feast and she makes a spicy pumpkin soup using her late mother’s recipe. (This is a subtle reminder that Matariki is also a time for remembering those who have died.) Daniel has fun working in the garden with his new friends and afterwards he enjoys his Matariki feast.

Christine Ross’s illustrations really capture the world of small boys and also give a good idea of how to greet the Māori new year.


15. Matariki Around the World Rangi Matamua & Miriama Kamo
Isobel Joy Te Aho-White (ill.) 82 pages, hardback, Scholastic (2022)

The subtitle tells it all: A Cluster of Stars, A Cluster of Stories.
Miriama Kamo and Rangi Matamua have gathered stories from around the world that are linked to the distinctive group of stars known to Maori as Matariki. ‘All around the world, the star cluster has different names, different stories, different mahi (jobs), and even different numbers of stars.’ The result is the best book ever written about Matariki.    

The first part of Matariki Around the World describes the Māori traditional creation of the 

world and has handsome double-page descriptions of the Maori gods and the lunar calendar. There are similar double-page retellings of some Māori traditions concerning the attributes of each of the stars Matariki and her eight children (Pōhutukawa, Tipuānuku, Tipuārangi, Waiti, Waitā, Waipunarangi, Ururangi and Hiwa-i-te-rangi). For example Tipuānuku cares for food grown in the earth, and her brightness gives an indication of how kumara crops will fare in the year ahead.

‘Anā! Te paki o Matariki. Behold! The wonders of Matariki.’

The second part of the book offers some retellings of Matariki stories from other cultures around the world. Not only the well-known Pleiades (Greece) and Subaru (Japan) legends are offered but also a range of stories from Africa, Australia, China, India, Scandinavia and North and South America. All are fascinating but the most interesting are the ones from the Pacific, with the similarities and differences sympathetically examined.

The writing style of this book is remarkable. The text is well researched and culturally sensitive but it is also written in a relaxed and witty style. Here the authors are revealing the Viking name for Matariki: ‘So you would think they’d have a pretty tough-guy name for the Matariki cluster, wouldn’t you? Nope. They called it…ahem…Freya’s Hens. Hens? What? Are hens hardy, battle-scarred warriors?’ (We also learn that some Vikings preferred to think of Matariki as a ladybird because of the insect’s seven spots.) Either way, Freya was the goddess who cared for the spirits of dead warriors. ‘So Freya is pretty cool.’
Writing like this makes for enjoyable reading.

Each story is beautifully illustrated by Isobel Joy Te Aho-White.
Best of all, this handsomely designed book has an excellent index and glossary.
It is a picture book which every home should have.

Trevor Agnew  

24 June 2022

The first celebration of Matariki as a New Zealand public holiday.

Dawn Hawk

DAWN  HAWK   KEN  CATRAN

                                                                    

Dawn Hawk 
Ken Catran
Lothian (2003)
Novel, 95 pages, 
Paperback, 
ISBN 0-7344-0468-9

Auckland teenager Hepzibah Rebecca Longfoot is known as Focus because she is focussed on becoming a space shuttle pilot. Her friend Bryce is equally focussed on becoming a writer (of romantic fiction as Brioney Forestvale, of horror as Bryon Groomwald, and of the supernatural as Bruce Graveburg). 

Suddenly the pair have to focus on staying alive. Ken Catran has concocted a riveting yarn about the search for a valuable, concealed sea-plane (the Dawn Hawk of the title) and added some really droll characters. These seem to include two sweet little old ladies, a brash American millionaire, the most boring man in the world, and several people who can only be described as henchmen. 

As always, in a Catran novel, nobody is quite as they at first seem. Good clean criminal fun, with a rousing conclusion, this story cries out to be filmed.

Trevor Agnew

This review was first published in The Press, Christchurch in 2003.

Juggling with Mandarins, V.M. Jones, 2003

Juggling with Mandarins by V.M. Jones, HarperCollins, Auckland, New Zealand, 2003, 255 pages, paperback, NZ$16.95.
ISBN 1-86950-462-3

Boy facing a challenge

We’ve all seen those red-faced rugby-fathers screaming with rage at the referee on Saturday mornings. Pip is appalled by his father’s obsessive attitude and has the courage to literally walk away from the game. He finds a new sporting challenge, one at which he excels and succeeds in establishing his own independence. He copes with the problems of adolescence with a nice touch of humour. At the same time he has the strength of character and self-confidence to achieve a moving reconciliation with his father.

Vicky Jones is the Christchurch writer whose first novel, Buddy, won three awards last year. Juggling with Mandarins shows her success wasn’t a fluke.

Trevor Agnew

First published in The Press, Christchurch, New Zealand on 27th September 2003

Quicksilver, Neal Stephenson, 2003

QUICKSILVER, Neal Stephenson, Heinemann UK [Random House NZ] 2003, 927 pages, paperback, NZ$49.95. ISBN 0-434-00893-1.

It is not convention to promote one novel while reviewing another but Neal Stephenson is hardly a conventional writer. I was lucky enough to read his best-seller Cryptonimicon (1999) after reading Quicksilver. Both are novels about code-breaking (in the sense that Moby Dick is about the whaling industry) but their real connection is that the main fictional characters in Cryptonimicon have 17th Century ancestors in Quicksilver.

For Quicksilver is a historical novel, volume 1 of the 3000 page Baroque Cycle trilogy, a wide-screen, word-crazed epic of renaissance science and spying, so vast that it’s arriving in three massive chunks over the next year.

Who would dare invent a 17th cryptographer, who was also a member of the Royal Society, a science fiction writer, and the Bishop of Epsom? Stephenson, who borrowed Wilkins’ Cryptonimicon as the title of his own novel brings Richard Wilkins back to life to acknowledge his debt. (If you think this review is discursive, wait till you dive into a Neal Stephenson novel.) Basically, after writing Cryptonimicon, a story based on Allied code-breaking in World War 2, Stephenson had no choice but to write Quicksilver, which is about how people began breaking the code of the universe.

As Alan Turing, the greatest code-breaker of all, wrote “There is a remarkably close parallel between the problems of the physicist and those of the cryptographer. The system on which a message is enciphered corresponds to the laws of the universe…”. Isaac Newton, the secretive genius who worked hard to portray himself as the world’s greatest scientist, is at the heart of Quicksilver, but around him a constellation of amazing characters travel in elliptical orbits. Hooke, Boyle and Leibniz are only three of the Royal Society members who play unexpected roles in Quicksilver as they decode the laws of the universe.

Newton’s room-mate at Cambridge is Daniel Waterhouse, a minor member of the Royal Society, whose role keeps changing, like mercury. Daniel’s father has endowed him with the full puritan theology required to witness the second coming of Christ in 1666. Instead Daniel sees the apocalyptic apotheosis of his father when Charles II blows up the Waterhouse home to halt the Great Fire of London.

Stephenson has a passion for unusual language and arcane terminology. Here, for example he displays not just his grasp of anatomy and sailing, but his ability to bring them together for Daniel’s flicker of thought as he faces a pirate attack (by Blackbeard, no less): “He dissected more than his share of dead men’s heads during those early Royal Society days and knows that the hull of the skull is all wrapped about with squishy rigging: haul-yards of tendon and braces of ligament cleated to pinrails on the jawbone and the temple, tugging at the corners of spreading canvases of muscle that curve over the forehead and wrap the old Jolly Roger in as many overlapping layers as there are sails on a ship of the line.”

The level of wit is high: “Roger was not so much wearing his wig as embedded in its lower reaches…”. There are many japes in Quicksilver, including a brief appearance by the “daft but harmless Mrs Goose” who amuses the Waterhouse children with “incoherent narratives about cutlery leaping over celestial bodies and sluttish hags living in discarded footwear”.

But this is only the first of three books within Volume 1 of this three-decker saga. In part two Bobbie Shaftoe’s vagabond brother Jack goes looting in the chaos of war-stricken Europe, and forms a partnership with Eliza, a Qwghlmian slave he rescues from the Turkish siege of Vienna. (Qwghlm is another brilliant Stephenson invention – a bleak pre-Celtic Hebridean island group with its own enigmatic history, language and culture.) Eliza’s entertaining tales of life in and out of the harem are matched by Jack’s picaresque memoirs, which include a mounted invasion of a French aristocrat’s costume ball.

In Part 3 Eliza, now Duchess of Qwghlm, mounts a spying mission that takes her through most of the royal courts of Western Europe. Her coded accounts of her adventures, and the finely spun series of intrigues within intrigues, add several layers of ambiguity to almost every historical event of the 1680s.

Science, politics religion, intrigue and counter-intrigue are so skilfully interwoven, and with such plausible and convincing detail that disbelief is suspended, even when Stephenson gets gold-panning techniques wrong or has Charles I executed with a sword rather than an axe. No matter, Stephenson’s scope includes the problem of minting and maintaining a reliable coinage, gunpowder mills, diplomacy, silver mines, theology, physics, symbolic logic, calculus, and the first computing machinery.

Grumpy reviewers might complain that they need lists of monarchs, family trees and maps to follow the plot but Stephenson has supplied all these and several other scientific surprises. In fact I don’t know when I’ve read a novel that was so continuously surprising.

Time and the New York Post call Neal Stephenson a genius He is not, but he is a brilliant story-teller with a fine sense of history, a superb command of language and an ability to keep a story rolling along. These talents are much rarer and more valuable than genius.

Trevor Agnew

First published in The Press, Christchurch, new Zealand on November 29th 2003.

The Hedgehog the Fox and the Magister’s Pox, Stephen Jay Gould, 2003

The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister’s Pox Stephen Jay Gould, Jonathan Cape, 2003, 274 pages, hardback, NZ$59.95. ISBN 0-2240-6309-X

Completed just before he died, Stephen Jay Gould’s last book deals with a single, appropriately wide-ranging topic, although it also draws from some of his essays in the collection Dinosaur in a Haystack (1996). Using the subtitle “mending the gap between science and the humanities” Gould examines the often tense relationship between scientists (a job title only coined in 1834) and society. Galileo and Lavoisier are two of the better-known examples of the tension between scientists and the authorities, whether spiritual or secular, who seek to control thought.

In The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister’s Pox Gould uses pages from historic science books (some containing fascinating handwritten additions) to illustrate the intellectual upheaval involved in the shift from relying on the classics to seeing that “personal observation must replace ancient testimony”. His shrewd comment - that a sheep is identified as a cloven-hoofed animal because one has looked at the hoof, not because Pliny said so – is a reminder of Gould’s skill at communicating concepts. He also displays his talent for debunking myths, finding odd connections, extolling knowledge, shattering preconceptions and exposing ‘creation scientists’ – “one of the greatest oxymorons of our time”.

Stephen Jay Gould’s final work draws together the odd trio of the title, Edgar Allan Poe as a shellfish-plagiarist, censorship, Pope’s Battle of the Books, art nouveau octopuses, Handel’s genius, burning books and invisible flamingos into a smoothly-linked exposition of ideas. It is a fitting memorial to a great communicator for both science and the humanities.

Trevor Agnew

First published in The Press, Christchurch, New Zealand in 2003

The English Roses, Madonna, 2003

THE ENGLISH ROSES Madonna, illustrated by Jeffrey Pulvimari, Puffin, 2003, 46 pages, hardback, NZ$29.95. ISBN 0 141 38047 0

In ten words: Madonna can sing, can act a little, but can’t write.

To elaborate: celebrities are surrounded by sycophants, become increasingly out of touch with reality, and acquire weird beliefs. Michael Jackson believes he needs plastic surgery. Madonna believes she can write five books for children.

Although the publishers claim The English Roses is for readers “over six”, the five girls are illustrated nearer their teens, mascara-ed and lipstick-ed, catwalk-thin and doe-eyed. (One girl has Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey on her bookshelf, along with Nancy Drew, Little Women and the Wizard of Oz, which dates Madonna nicely but suggests a very weird seven-year-old.)

Four of the girls are pretty and are friends, known as the English Roses. In some rural wonderland they skate together, picnic together, and dance the Vogue (Madonna’s dance) together. They are jealous of Binah who is very pretty (she looks like a young Madonna) but when their fairy godmother shows them that Binah’s mother is dead (like Madonna’s) and she does lots of housework, they become her friends. That’s it. No personalities, no conversations and no plot; just a series of beautiful fashion-plates and an over-cute narrator. It is this last which is important. If Sally Smith had written this book, her manuscript would still be doing the rounds of the publishing houses.

Trevor Agnew

First published in The Press, Christchurch, New Zealand, on October 11th 2003.

The Science of Harry Potter: How Magic Really Works, Roger Highfield, 2003

The Science of Harry Potter: How Magic really Works, by Roger Highfield, Headline, 2003, Hardback, 374 pages, ISBN 0-7553-1150-7, $29.99.

Wizard Wheeze

“If Marie Curie had not lived, we still would have discovered the radioactive elements polonium and radium. But if J.K. Rowling had not been born, we would never have known about Harry Potter.”

You might not expect an Oxford D. Phil, who wrote a best-selling life of Einstein, to pen that amazing thought, but Dr Highfield is also the first person to bounce a neutron of a soap bubble and the author of a book examining the scientific background of Santa’s flying reindeer.

Best of all this immensely readable account of the science behind Harry Potter has the ultimate accolade on its cover: “Not approved or endorsed by J.K. Rowling or Warner Bros.” No better guarantee of integrity could be made.

Dr Highfield invited more than a hundred fellow scientists around the world to comment on aspects of the Potter magic, which as all science fiction readers know brings us to Arthur C. Clarke’s dictum quoted here as “Any smoothly functioning technology gives the appearance of magic”.

The scientific wizards suggested all sorts of connections between magic and muggledom. The Sorting Hat leads to the reading of brain waves by magnetoencephalography, while Madam Pomfrey’s Skele-Gro is linked to osteoblasts and bone morphogenic protein. The Whomping Willow involves the hydraulic technology of trees. We learn about current research in everything from the IQ of owls to the role of taste receptors in judging Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans. It’s the ear-wax ones that frighten me but Highfield offers some terrifying alternatives.

The levitating frogs are the best bit; it seems you can levitate frogs in an electromagnet without harm. (Highfield also notes that “no mythical beasts were harmed” in the writing of this book.) There is even a shrewd attempt at locating Hogwarts. The giant squid suggests a Scottish loch with former sea access, but discoveries by our own NIWA scientists may indicate a location nearer to the Chathams Rise (with the aid of a little magic, of course).

Poisons, game theory, everlasting clothes, John Dee, monsters, alchemy, the mathematics of Evil, genetics, Nicholas Flamel, the Big Bang, astrology, time travel and ethnobotany are all introduced with the same verve. The analysis of superstition (and why we cling to it) is a good example of logical prose at its best. “With the urge to link cause and effect in everyday life remaining as strong as ever, the result is superstition – lots of it, mad, glorious, daft and everywhere.” His examples include a baseball player who ate lemon chicken before every game for twenty years!

This is all clear, lively science-for-the-layman writing and we need all we can get of that. Dr Highfield writes well and thinks clearly. He communicates his joy in science but he knows his Wordsworth and his J.K. Rowling as well. The Science of Harry Potter is a pleasure to read.
It is even touching, as when the author concludes, “Science may be special but Harry, as a work of art, is more so. Harry Potter is unique.”

Trevor Agnew

First published in The Press, Christchurch, New Zealand, on April 19th 2003

Aunt Effie's Ark, Jack Lasenby, 2003

AUNT EFFIE’S ARK Jack Lasenby, Longacre Press, Dunedin, New Zealand, 2003, 173 pages, paperback, $16.95. ISBN 1-877135-84-4.

Aunt Effie’s Ark, the second in Jack Lasenby’s series about his indomitable aunt, follows on smoothly from Aunt Effie. As the ink-wells freeze and the snow builds up, Effie hibernates, leaving her 26 nieces and nephews to fight off the wolves, bears and man-eating rhinoceroses which sneak down from the Vast Untrodden Ureweras. When disaster strikes, their well-stocked barn serves as a fully-rigged ark, giving New Zealand’s best fabulist a chance to demonstrate his skill at spinning outrageous whoppers. This funny epic introduces the Underground Correspondence School and has guest appearances by Barry Crump, a talking horse and three of Effie’s former husbands. David Elliot’s pictures are gems.

Trevor Agnew

First published in The Press, Christchurch, New Zealand on March 6th 2004

Lin and the Red Stranger, Ken Catran, 2003

LIN AND THE RED STRANGER Ken Catran, Random House, Auckland, New Zealand, 2003, 174 pages, paperback, NZ$16.95. ISBN 1-86941-577-9

Writing for young people in New Zealand is now in what will be seen as a golden age, with many of our best writers at the peak of their powers. Ken Catran, for example, had three novels (historic, science fiction and comic) nominated for this year’s NZ Post Children’s Book Awards.

He shows the same energy with Lin and the Red Stranger, the fast-moving story of a Chinese servant-girl in the Otago goldfields. Pedants might complain that since he has four Chinese women characters at a time when there were none in New Zealand, this book is a fantasy. Maybe so, but Lin’s view of events provides a fresh perspective, while her encounters with the “red stranger” – Declan, a red-haired Irish lad about to start a criminal career – creates an unusual conflict of cultures.

Trevor Agnew

First published in The Press, Christchurch on March 6th 2004.