Moa: The Story of a Fabulous Bird PhilipTemple and Chris Gaskin, Hodder & Stoughton, $11.95 Old Blue: The Rarest Bird in the World Mary Taylor, Ashton Scholastic, $19.95 The South Island ‘sightings’ of the elusive moa provide a timely context…
The Iron Mouth Beryl Fletcher, Daphne Brasell Associates Press, $32.95 The Iron Mouth, Beryl Fletcher’s second story in a trilogy of feminist novels, is written on two levels. On one level, it is a simple novel about a crowd of New…
Deepwater Landing Ken Catran, Harper Collins (Tui), $14.95 Ken Catran is the unsung artisan of young adult writing in this country. He has been writing television scripts (Children of the Dog Star), novels (Steel riders) and film scripts (Alex) for years…
Seeing Red Marilyn Duckworth, Vintage, $19.95 Fifteen Rubies by Candlelight Shonagh Koea, Vintage, $19.95 Reading Shonagh Koea’s stories in Fifteen Rubies by Candlelight is like sampling a box of good, rich chocolates. Read (or eat) too many at once and there’s a…
Swag and Tucker Margaret Hall, McIndoe Publishers, $18.95 The Runaway Settlers Elsie Locke, Hazard Press, $16.95 These delightful books, set in New Zealand’s colonial days, bring to life the harsh and tender experiences of families in the New Zealand of…
Last Summer Gaelyn Gordon, David Ling Publishing, $24.95 Gaelyn Gordon writes well enough, and this, her third book for adults (she has previously written for children), is a ripping yarn. The simple quality of her writing is perhaps intended as…
Sasscat to Win Paula Boock, McIndoe Publishers, $16.95 Adoption in some form has long been a staple of story-telling for the young – especially where it concerns a goosegirl or a ploughboy who are brought up by peasants, but turn…
He Tangi Aroha: A Cry for Love Apirana Taylor, Huia Publishers, $29.95 The Eye of the Everlasting Angel Noel Virtue, Vintage, $19.95 1990. Lest we forget. 150 years. How could we forget? But it was a year no one seemed…
Against the Tide Fleur Beale, HarperCollins (Tui), $12.95 A Time To Choose Jacqui Sutton Beets, HarperCollins (Tui), $14.95 At a time of high consciousness over whether the central characters of new teenage fiction are female or male it is encouraging to find…
Daisy and Lily Renée, Penguin, $24.95 The blurb on the back of Renée’s new novel, Daisy and Lily, announces that ‘Renée has created a world which is part biography, part elegy, part robust stand-up comedy, all leavened with lively good sense.’…