Between the Flags by Rachel Fenton. Pub. Cuba Press, 2022.

Winner of the Laura Solomon Cuba Press prize for YA literature this three part novel captures the problems faced by young people when a crisis takes over their lives.

The following quotation from the book tells it better than I could so I have printed it intact:- “You can’t get rid of grief. Its like plastic. Once it’s there it’s always there. It just gets broken down into smaller and smaller pieces until you hardly notice it”

Mandy came out to NZ from England with her mother and elder brother and settled into the kiwi way of life. Her mother formed a relationship with a decent man, Geoff, and they had a son Casey who became Mandy’s younger brother and Geoff her father.

Mandy joins a surf lifesaving group and has serious rivalry with other girls in this group who bully her because she is over weight and different. When her mother is seen flirting with a well known local celebrity Mandy’s life starts to come undone. Then tragedy hits with the drowning of 6 year old casey and the demise of her mother’s relationship with Geoff.

Mandy copes by writing a comic book about a girl called Mako who is a lifesaver but it is not enough. She takes counselling, her school work falls away and her relationships fall apart. She needs help and a break. She gets it and the comic book is the key.

Two main parts to this novel with the comic book the third part. Read it and find out what happens. The comic illustrations are superb.

Very good teacher role models in this book. I wish I had teachers as good as this when I was at school. All the adults in this novel are worthy although the same cannot be said of some of the school girls. Female bullying is so personal.

Curly-Cat by Jennifer Somervell. Illus. Zerika Van Jaarsveld. Pub. Landing Lights Press, 2021

This is a first class picture book about more than a cat with a long straggly tail. It is about bullying, it is about cats and how they communicate with their tails and it is about friends and their importance for self esteem.

Curly-Cat has an unruly tail. He thinks it is different and weird. He tries everything to make it look better including a trip to the Laundrocat to make it curly, remove hairballs and look good. It doesn’t, and a very impressive Meany cat taunts him about it.

Curly -Cat goes to Barber Cat to shorten his tail but that is not the answer and Curly -Cat leaves with tears in his eyes. Then Barber Cat has a brilliant idea that will change Curly-Cats life for ever at the Best Tail in Pawsville Competition. It is great as tails are judged to the music of the Hot Tin Roof band.

The illustrations are superb and in the back information is given about the breed of cat used to make all the characters. There is also an information page on what bullying is and a picture of the cat with the longest tail.

The happy ending is illustrated as the cats play Tails and Ladders while eating Mouse Mallows, choc Fish and wing chips.

One of the picture books of the year. This book will keep youngsters occupied for hours.

Dreamweavers Bk1. Awa and the Dreamrealm by Isa Pearl Ritchie.

Dreamweavers Bk1. Awa and the Dreamrealm by Isa Pearl Ritchie. Pub.Te Ra Aroha Press, 2019.

After reading this fantasy with a realism twist for primary and intermediate school readers, I played the Gary Wright song Dreamweaver. Do this yourself and see why.

Awa is of oriental descent, she is sensitive, her parents have just split up, she has moved to a small Wellington flat with her mother and she has started at another school.

At night she has dreams that seem real and one evening she sees a light that turns out to be a Dreamcharmer named Veila. Veila teaches Awa to enter the Dreamrealm where unbeknown to her she has an important role to play as a Dreamweaver.

At school Awa is bullied by Felicity but meets a friend Ella who is also bullied by Felicity. The divorce of the parents, the bullying and the racism, provide the realism twist to the dream world fantasy that Awa enters but somehow there is a connection.

This first part of a trilogy has Awa learn to understand the power the powers she has and the enemies she faces in the Dreamrealm in the personna of The Politician and Judgement. I feel the best is yet to come.

Easy to read, short chapters and much to appeal to pre-teens. The fantasy is drawn from the Greek legend Narcissus and from Maori mythology especially the nature of dreams.

Avis and the Promise of Dragons by Heather McQuillan.

Avis and the Promise of Dragons by Heather McQuillan. Pub. AHOY, imprint Cuba Press, 2019.

How do you weave an ex All Black star, a manipulative dragon, a kind hearted little girl with a slovenly father and brother, a mother who has left home, a bully, an endangered species smuggler and chocolate bars into a novel?

Check out this easy to read tale and find out. Of course it is an outrageous fantasy and tall story, but it is good fun and an easy read for primary and intermediate students.

Avis is the central character and she is a very likeable. Her father is in a slump because his wife and Avls’s mother has run off with an ex All Black. Bruno the 14 year old brother is in a grump as well. Avis does everything around the house.

Then Avis gets a job minding an eccentric scientists house while she attends to a screeching peacock, and discovers a giant lizard that loves chocolate which makes it shed it’s skin and grow quickly. Not only that it becomes a dragon and is able to manipulate Avis through thought control.

I can tell you no more but it is fun.

The Magic Desk by Aaron Moffat

The Magic Desk by Aaron Moffat. Pub Olympia Publishers 2018.\

This is the third book from this author, all are reviewed on this blog, and his main obsession is bullying in schools. He has others too and many are found in this recent novel.

Timothy is a WASP (white anglo saxon protestant), he is 12 years old and has just arrived in NZ with his born to rule mother. He looks like a studious boy but at heart is shiftless and lazy, and he is going to have to change.

Timothy is rescued from a beating by bullies by Aroha a Maori girl who fancies him and is the daughter of a reformed Gang leader. Their relationship is at the core of this novel.

Timothy’s mother buys a mahogany “escritoire”, (desk in more common language,) which has a portal into another world. Through traveling via the desk to different historical scenarios including pre European Maori, French revolution and others, Timothy learns that bullying is a human trait that is impossible to extinguish. Humans will take it to the grave.

Lots of race and immigrant talk, some of it will appall you, but mostly it is tongue in cheek and open to further discussion. The novel is well written, lofty writing in parts and the characters do change. Timothy learns that reading and writing are powerful and a petition over enviromental concerns changes everything. His mum will never change.

I laughed all the way through. For intermediate and high school students. Check it out.

Dave Pigeon 3. Pigeon Racer by Swapna Haddow, illus. Sheena Dempsey.

Dave Pigeon 3. Pigeon Racer by Swapna Haddow, illus. Sheena Dempsey. Pub. Faber & Faber, 2018.

As I read this new Dave Pigeon book I wondered if he had changed or learned something since his wing was ripped off by a mean cat. He is just as boastful and he and his friend Skipper are still living in the friendly human’s shed. But he is highly imaginative.

The friendly human takes Dave and Skipper to a vet where Dave is having a new wing fitted. There they meet a whole new set of animals including Jet, the wise cracking three legged dog. When they stay over night they are challenged by a former pirate’s parrot  Opprobrious Vastanavius. Dave as usual puts his beak in and ends up challenging the parrot to a race.

Ever the optimist Dave considers his new wing will be right and is confident his status as a racing pigeon will get him home. Then Dave’s missing father, a champion racing pigeon called Micky Lightning, shows up in the enemy camp giving racing tips to the parrot.

It’s all on. Full of bad jokes and madcap capers, this story is highly imaginative with lots of laughs for the newly confident reader.  Sheena Dempsey comes to the party with great illustrations of the new characters.

Worth getting this series.

White Rabbit Red Wolf by Tom Pollock

White Rabbit Red Wolf by Tom Pollock. Pub. Walker Books, 2018.

This is a psychological thriller of the very highest order for your gifted young adult readers, about spies and mathematics . In 1991 I read a book about the philosophical concepts of Western Thought by Jostein Gaarder titled Sophies’ World which was absolutely brilliant. This novel ranks along side that novel.

I am not going to try to explain it to you I am just going to tell you what it is all about and you can work it out for yourselves.

Anibel and Peter are seventeen year old twins born 8 minutes apart. Their parents are separated and they don’t know their father. They are White Rabbit and Red Wolf in spy parlance. Their mother is strategically the most important mind in the UK since Turing and a target for spies. The British spy agency 57 fears she is open to the highest bidder and they watch her and her two children.

Ingrid or Ana is sent to infiltrate the twins life and she concentrates on Peter. If you have a deep dark desire that you don’t want anyone to know about and you are in the same room as Ana, she will get it out of you. The novel is in two time sequences, the present and 5 years earlier when Ingrid came into Peter’s life. Peter narrates the story.

Anibel has protected Peter all his life. She is savvy and ruthless and she precipitates much of the action in this story. Peter is obsessed with mathematics. He thinks mathematics can solve everything in life. He knows he is damaged because he has panic attacks that debilitate him, and he hopes to use mathematics to get closer to fixing himself. But he is going to make discoveries about his sister, mother and Ana that will shatter him.

When Peter and Anibel’s mother is attacked and stabbed with a knife on the eve of presenting  a ground breaking scientific paper all hell breaks loose, with Peter, Anibel and Ana on the run from spies and the police. The action is stunning.

The novel is in three parts – Encrypt, Invert and Recoil, the three steps in mathematics that prove everything is a lie. Work it out for yourself, it is superb.

The World’s Worst Children 3 by David Walliams illus. Tony Ross.

The World’s Worst Children 3 by David Walliams illus. Tony Ross. Pub. HarperCollins, 2018.

I don’t really need to review this book because kids will already know about it, but I do so for all those kids who would rather make monkey noises than sing xmas carols(I.m one of those), or those who stick all their bogeys together so that they look like a huge green icicle, then eat them.

Yes it is ten more horrible children who throw tantrums, do pranks, are overly bossy, kung fu everything and generally make life intolerable for those around them. Sure it is well over the top but we all know the type.

My favourite is Walter the Wasp a short arsed bully with a sharp nose and a wit that cuts like a knife. He is out to win bully of the year trophy which is a gold statuette depicting a bully giving a smaller child a wedgie.

There is always a seriousness about David Walliam’s books, he hates cheats, bullies, public school twits and the gap between rich and poor.

I love his books and you will too. This man has done more to get reluctant kids to read than anybody since J.K. Rowling. Illustrated brilliantly once again in colour by Tony Ross.

I’m The Biggest by Stephanie Blake

I’m The Biggest by Stephanie Blake. Pub. Gecko press, June 2018

Poo Bum  set the bench mark for this series of picture books about Simon and later his little brother Casper. It is a hard act to follow but Stephanie Blake has managed to keep the momentum going  with slick prose, bold colourful illustrations and a storyline that always surprises.

In this latest edition sibling rivalry becomes a feature of Simon and Casper’s relationship when their mother discovers that Casper has grown 3 centimeters and Simon only one.

Simon says No Way and becomes jealous. An incident in the park makes Simon realise he is still the BIG brother even though the size difference is getting smaller.

Casper of course sees things differently.

Great read-a-loud for juniors and will help littlies to view their own role in the family. Good laugh for adults too.

NB Not released until June 2018.

Time Twins by Sally Astridge & Arne Norlin.

Time Twins by Sally Astridge & Arne Norlin. Pub. Makaro Press, 2017.

Astrid and Tamati are 11 years old. They were born at exactly the same time except Astrid was born in Sweden and Tamati in New Zealand, countries that are exactly 12 hours apart. They are Time Twins.

Tamati with help from his koro or grandfather learns about time twins and through relaxation is able to travel directly to his time twin in Sweden. They get on well but Astrid has to learn the techniques of relaxation so that she can travel to New Zealand.

Sounds like science fiction doesn’t it? but it is not. The Time twin concept is just a mechanism to compare life styles, schooling, attitudes, parenting, puberty and friendship in Sweden and New Zealand. They are remarkably similar yet different at the same time.

The issue that stood out for me was bullying. Both Astrid and Tamati have bullying episodes in their lives and there are different ways to bully and to handle bullying.

The stories are excellent with Tamati and Astrid having consecutive chapters. I was particularly intrigued by the Swedish scenario and I guess Swedes will be intrigued by the New Zealand one.

It is a good read for middle school and pre-teen readers.