Humour and History for Young

My Life of Crime Fleur Beale, Mallinson Rendel, 138 pages, paperback, NZ$17
ISBN 978-1-877423-05-5

Archie’s Adventures Leonie Thorpe, HarperCollins, 144 pages, paperback, NZ$16.99
ISBN 978-1-86950-656-8

Shadows in the Ice Des Hunt, HarperCollins, 224 pages, paperback, NZ$16.99
ISBN 978-1-86950-673-1

Dead Dan’s Dee Phyllis Johnston, Longacre, paperback, NZ$16.99
ISBN 978-1-877361-75-3


These four good novels have a common theme of adolescents achieving self-reliance in the face of difficult events. They are also completely different from each other.

Leonie Thorpe, a Lyttelton author, has gone for the humorous approach in Archie’s Adventure, where Archie Roach seems to be a failure at everything he tries. Arriving in Port Collerden, he finds fulfilment by learning to fish, whistle and join the activities of the local sea scouts. His encounter with Theo Sussex, a former TV personality eager to be elected Mayor, is particularly funny. (“You wouldn’t know him, dear. He used to be famous,” says a local.) As Archie battles his way through a fishing contest and a regatta he gains self-esteem and his readers gain some cheerful moments.

In Des Hunt’s Shadows in the Ice, the sequel to Frog Whistle Mine (2006), young Tony still fancies himself as an amateur detective but is soon out of his depth when he returns to the West Coast. At Fox Glacier he encounters the mystery of a corpse – the wrong corpse - emerging from the ice after a seven year journey. Tony also befriends the intriguing Murray ‘Simple’ Kimpel, a gentle giant who disposes of cattle carcasses and cares for injured birds.
Tony is resourceful in gathering evidence but, to his embarrassment, it takes his indomitable friend Rose to help him clear up the mystery. She also provides his first kiss. The conclusion is dramatically exciting. This novel also contains enough gruesome humour and painful puns to make it a sure hit with young male readers.

My Life of Crime is a readable and witty personal confession. Anthony, the narrator, admits he was a “useless, whinging, snivelling, moaning blob” and tells how he became Ant, a self-reliant and confident young man, able to outwit his enemies and even win some of them over as friends. Ant’s first-person narrative is very amusing especially when it becomes clear that his plans for the future still include the life of crime of the title. His dreams of instant wealth through a little kidnapping and ransom are never achieved but some surprising events do occur and Ant finds himself facing a major personal challenge. Fleur Beale has created a witty story that also offers some helpful tips for people who want to better themselves

“You must be Dee. You look like your father.” Historical novels for the young continue their growth in popularity. Phyllis Johnston’s Dead Dan’s Dee is a moving recreation of the problems faced by the soldiers of World War One, both on the battlefield and in later life back in New Zealand.
Dee’s father, Dan, had died on the Somme, so when her mother and aunt develop tuberculosis, she has to live first in a grim orphanage and then on a backblocks farm near Rotorua with her father’s best friend Joe and his wife Essie.
Life is hard, with low dairy prices and the threat of bush sickness, but Dee has the added difficulty of being haunted by the secrets that surround Dan’s death. She eventually learns the truth and finds happiness but at a cost. This richly detailed story brings the past alive for young readers and links Dee’s discovery to more recent events.


This review by Trevor Agnew first appeared in The Press, Christchurch on 3rd November 2007.

New Zealand Post Book Awards, 2007

New Zealand Post Book Awards, 2007

HISTORY WINS by Trevor Agnew

History was the winner at the NZ Post Book Awards, where our best books for young people are honoured. Showing my bias as a History teacher, I feel that almost all the finalists show an appreciation of the importance of the past.

Marcia Stenson’s Illustrated History of the South Pacific (Non Fiction winner, Book of the Year) is so readable and interesting that parents as well as children are reading it. Richly illustrated and attractively designed, it includes the heritage of every major group from French Polynesia to Fiji. Her book’s appeal stretches far beyond readers with Islands family ties, for as Stenson reminds us, we are all people of the South Pacific and this is our history too.

Reading history makes us view familiar events in a fresh way, and Janice Marriott’s Thor’s Tale (Junior Fiction winner) is a stunning example of this. Thor, a young Norwegian working in brutal conditions at a whaling station in South Georgia, is fascinated by the men of Shackleton’s expedition with unexpected results. Genesis (Young Adult winner) by Bernard Beckett is a skilfully constructed sf parable about future New Zealanders examining their past which may well be our future. Readers are craftily led into mind-expanding thought experiments and reflections on human intelligence.

Recently, young New Zealanders have been reading more historical fiction, like Bill O’Brien’s Castaway, a vivid account of the fate of the Dundonald’s survivors in the Auckland Islands. Castaway didn’t win but it will help make a new generation aware of the significance of that hand-made boat in the Canterbury Museum. Ted Dawe’s And Did Those Feet… performs the even more remarkable feat of making young people interested in the ideas of William Blake.
Fleur Beale’s A Respectable Girl, provides an evocative account of life in Taranaki on the eve of the New Zealand Wars, while in Matatuhi, Robyn Kahukiwa shows a young girl’s growing awareness of her own family history. Gavin Bishop’s Riding the Waves uses words and pictures to breathe new life into four Maori legends. In the non-fiction field, Neville Peat’s Winging It! puts Sir Tim Wallis back into the air, while Leon Davidson introduces the Anzac experience of the Vietnam War in Red Haze.

Some might argue that the winning picture books are not historical. Wrong. In The Three Fishing Brothers Gruff (Best First Book) Ben Galbraith uses an old legend (and plenty of humour) to show the flaws in our past use of the ocean’s resources. A Present from the Past (Honour Award) by Jennifer Beck, illustrated by Lindy Fisher brings a relic of the Great War to life. Kyle Mewburn, Ali Teo and John O’Reilly combine their talents in Kiss! Kiss! Yuck! Yuck! (Picture Book winner, Children’s Choice Award) to show a small boy’s desperate efforts to escape an aunt who is determined to kiss him. Is this history? Think back into your own past. Kiss! Kiss! Yuck! Yuck! captures an unforgettable moment from everyone’s childhood.

How fitting that all these marvellous books will now form part of a whole generation’s childhood memories.


This article by Trevor Agnew was published in The Press, Christchurch on 19th May 2007, following the announcement of the New Zealand Post Book Awards.

The Transformation of Minna Hargreaves

The Transformation of Minna Hargreaves Fleur Beale, Random House, 2007, 286 pages, paperback, NZ$19.99. ISBN 1-86941-836-6

When a TV reality shows isolates a family on to a rugged, Cook Strait island for a year, the stress could damage the happiest family. The Hargreaves family already have problems and when the producer sets up several emotional ambushes, Minna is not the only one whose life is unexpectedly transformed. From being a self-centred ‘urban princess’, interested only in make-up, clothes and boys, Minna finds herself forced not only to cook and clean but also to accept responsibilities. Her father’s character flaws, her mother’s guilty secret and her brother’s drug habit put an overwhelming load on Minna’s shoulders. The adult issues that Minna faces (and the language that she uses) make The Transformation of Minna Hargreaves suitable for older readers. They will enjoy Fleur Beale’s lively account how a girl’s life is changed forever by her experiences and, with luck, they might learn from it.

Trevor Agnew

This review first appeared in The Press, Christchurch on 31st March 2007.

A Respectable Girl

A RESPECTABLE GIRL, Fleur Beale, Random House, 350 pages, paperback, $18.99. ISBN 1-86941-764-X

Fleur Beale has always been a strong storyteller but her recent historical novels have been first-rate. A Respectable Girl is set in two very different worlds: mid-Victorian Britain and colonial Taranaki on the brink of war. Hannah, the lively daughter of a raffish remittance man, finds it is not always easy to be a respectable girl, in New Plymouth or in Devon. With a Maori stepmother, Hannah and her twin brother Jamie have an acute insight into the dispute which is engulfing their settlement and splitting their family.

When the twins sail to England in search of information about their mother they learn more than they expected. This shift of focus does split the novel in two, but it also allows Hannah to show resourcefulness and intelligence, as she copes with high society. Her indignant defence of the colonial virtues in an English drawing-room is a delight. As the romantic and legal tangles are sorted out, Hannah finds that her heart and her future belong in New Zealand. Older readers will particularly enjoy the rich historical detail, the range of personalities and the evocation of the ideas and attitudes of the period.

Trevor Agnew

This review first appeared in The Press, Christchurch, New Zealand on 18th March 2006.

Walking Lightly, Fleur Beale, 2005

WALKING LIGHTLY Fleur Beale, illustrated by Michaela Sangl, Mallinson Rendel, Wellington, New Zealand, 2005, 72 pages.
Paperback, NZ$16.95 ISBN 0-908783-90-6.
Hardback NZ$21.95. ISBN 0-908783-84-1.

Millie’s parents are wealthy but she prefers to ‘walk lightly through the world.’ Since she plans to live simply, her parents advise her to be resourceful, so in her holidays Millie goes camping, while her classmates are at posh resorts. When disaster strikes during a class trip, Millie is the only one with the resourcefulness to survive. The others come to value her independent attitude to life, while Millie learns the value of friendship.

The layout of Walking Lightly is fresh and exciting. Michaela Sangl’s illustrations include spaces for readers to add their own contributions, such as ‘Stuff You’d Take to a Tropical Island’. The result is a very funny book which enables readers to share Millie’s encounters with peer pressure and mass marketing.

Trevor Agnew

First published in The Press, Christchurch, on December 24th 2004.