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Entertaining read for teens addresses important matters

28/1/2022

Troubled Water – Viola Vincent Reporting
by Anna Kenna

“This book is dedicated to young people throughout the world who are demanding action to save our planet in this time of crisis.”
At the outset the intention is stated, and throughout the 168 pages of text there’s no apology for keeping to it.
Caitlin, in her early teens, has already gained a reputation as a stirrer. In a good way. She takes on causes, looking into issues she feels need investigating. She’s abetted by an equally concerned librarian and a news reporter. Under the name Viola Vincent, Caitlin has been instrumental in bringing about changes in other social areas.
This time, after she picks up a tummy bug at a swimming hole in a river, she takes on the problem of polluted water – part of her wider concern for environmental reform and control.
Lessons about the environment and its management are well incorporated into the dialogue so don’t appear contrived.
Even better, the story includes iwi views and sensitivities around whose voices are being listened to.
Despite the serious messages at its heart, the book is not heavy – it’s an easy and entertaining read that addresses important matters in a way well geared to teens. It is well timed to support growing environmental concern among young people as has been shown in recent youth protests.
It’s definitely one that should be added to every school library.

Review by Emily R

Title: Troubled Water – Viola Vincent Reporting
Author: Anna Kenna
Publisher: Tiromoana Publishing
ISBN: 9780473486303
RRP: $25
Available: bookshops

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Novel deals with chaos in small community

21/1/2022

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Wild Chorus
by Peter Thomas

During a violent West Coast storm, 5 year old Davey tells his mother he has seen fire in the sky. His mother, River, recognises the distress flares, and mobilises the tiny community to rescue two women and two men from the raging sea – Thyme, Tidie, Raro, and Tonga. Their presence changes the whole community forever.
The newcomers had taken great pains to keep their presence away from all authorities such as police, doctors and hospitals. The plans they had made to begin farming near Greymouth ended on the rocks and crashing surf of the small bay, along with their tools, seeds and equipment.
The rescued sailors are accepted into the small community and begin to build an extension onto River’s cabin to house themselves. Their open approach to sex is difficult for the others to understand at first, but is soon seen as normal behaviour.
A hot shot lawyer (Grant) from Christchurch arrives with his wife, full of ideas and cash to combat climate change by building a self-sufficient community, driven by what he calls a ‘circle of giving’ economy.
A young Indian woman, Karma, comes with a new born baby, and Grant admits to being the father. Under pressure from his wife, he agrees to build Karma a cabin to live in.
To this mix is added the news that a high court judge jumped, or was pushed, off the roof of a hotel, and his wife comes seeking Grant to represent her son who was ‘helping the police with their enquiries’. However, she has a second motive for her visit. Thyme used to work as the Judge’s secretary, and became aware that his wife and son were major drug distributors.
From out of this chaos Grant drives the idea of taking in young offenders and teaching them life skills by building a garden to allow the community to become self-sufficient in food, and giving them a skill they can use to get employment when their time is up.
The author uses his technical background to make the plans appear workable, and his social ideas frame the way the community is organised. He draws on Maori culture to illustrate how these ideas have worked in the past, and can do so again if we are willing to let them.
The book reads easily, but I will not attempt to comment on the social ideas that it contains. I will leave it to readers to make up their own minds in that regard.

Review by Pisces79

Title: Wild Chorus
Author: Peter Thomas
Publisher: Good Hope Publishing House
ISBN: 978-0-9941188-7-5
RRP: $23 plus Post and Packing (where applicable)
Available: Bookshops; Good Hope Publishing PO Box 596 Picton 7220, pandi.goodhope@gmail.com;
Raukura Art Gallery rua4art@xtra.co.nz; Amazon

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Good archival investigation

14/1/2022

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Spies and Lies: The Mysterious
Dr Dannevill
by Julie Glamuzina

This is one of those fascinating historical puzzles that tend to leave more questions than satisfactory answers, but lots of intrigue along the way.
Dr Dannevill arrived in New Zealand with a female companion from England, and helped set up something called the Lahmann Home in Miramar, Wellington in 1912. The ‘home’ was meant to be a sanctuary, providing some form of respite care for those suffering nervous exhaustion, and was thus something of a private psychiatric clinic.
But was Dr Dannevill really a medical doctor, with experience in researching venereal disease? Was her name actually Dannevill, and why did she use the prefix ‘von’, when it had aristocratic connotations? Was she actually Danish or not, and why did she often pose as a man to obtain work?
Julie Glamuzina asks all of these questions and more, without reaching compelling answers. Dr Dannevill was the subject of compulsion once suspected of being a German spy in 1917, a long time after war broke out, largely because of the failure of the Lahmann Home. We get to know quite a lot about her interrogation from the official archives, but her answers were still mostly evasive.
The book is written in the context of lesbian history, but all sorts of angles and explanations for Dannevill’s journeys are considered. Ultimately, there is not much of narrative here: we still don’t know much of her past, but after being released from confinement on Somes Island in Wellington Harbour, Dannevill heads down south with a former patient, and eventually leaves the country for good. So there is certainly a final journey, as the couple head to San Francisco, but no happy ending.
There is a lot of good archival investigation here, and excellent endnotes which add to the detail.
Much of the book is about contextual information, firstly about Dr Edith Huntley, who set up the Lahmann Home, and other associates in New Zealand. There are other entirely contextual chapters, about other female ‘global travellers’ and ‘scandalous women’ of that historical era. But ultimately it can be seen as a story of someone who didn’t fit in the society of the time, and was vulnerable to discrimination or persecution, especially when the State is looking for enemies within their borders.

Review by S A Boyce

Title: Spies and Lies: The Mysterious Dr Dannevill
Author: Julie Glamuzina
Publisher: DoubleaXe Press
ISBN: 978-0-473-58080-2
RRP: $35
Available: bookshops

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Well researched short novel

6/1/2022

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Buenos Aires Triad
by FE Beyer

This is a very well researched short novel on a subject not familiar to most.
I was unaware of the extent to which the triads were entrenched on the South American Continent or that criminal gangs from neighbouring countries were operating to such a high degree in Argentina. Maybe because of that, I felt I was being told about these people rather than being shown around their world.
The bones of the story are sound, but I found it tended to read like a draft. There was so much more I wanted to know. I would love to have learned more about the characters and to have been given the opportunity to feel more of the atmosphere that would have been created around these events.
Learning more of Lucas’s relationship with his father could help round his character and understanding in more detail what brought Gustavo to his life of crime could also have helped to draw me more effectively into the story. That would also have helped to build more tension into what could have been a nail-biter of a yarn.
If this tale was ever to be filled out to its potential as a full-length novel I would certainly revisit.

Review by George Hollinsworth

Title: Buenos Aires Triad
Author: FE Beyer
Publisher: FE Beyer
ISBN: 0473588137
RRP: $4NZD ebook, paperback $13 NZD
Available: Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/0473588137/
Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/buenos-aires-triad

Comments

Entertaining read for teens addresses important matters

Novel deals with chaos in small community

Good archival investigation

Well researched short novel

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