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Glorious children's book

31/3/2018

Amy's Dreaming Adventures: The Enchanted Forest
by Chrissy Metge

I love, love, love it!
As soon as I saw the cover of The Enchanted Forest, I knew I would love this book.
To begin with the artwork is fascinating.
I have been sitting here trying to decide which is my favourite picture, and I cannot choose.
Well, perhaps the page where she first sets flight with snowy, and then the page when they fly home again...
Totally interactive reading for children. Rhyme. There is so much detail and so many splashes of bright colour in the artwork--more than just the simple story told in pictures.
When Amy goes to sleep at night with her special cuddly owl, they go on a dreaming adventure together.
They set off to meet the fairies, the frogs, the trolls, the turtle, parrots, and the elves present her with a princess dress.
Then Amy and Snowy go even deeper into the dream forest to continue their adventures.
It is a glorious children's book.
I love kid's books! Especially this one.

Review by Susan Tarr

Title: Amy's Dreaming Adventures: The Enchanted Forest
Author: Chrissy Metge
Publisher: Duckling Publishing
ISBN: 9780473413194
RRP: $29.99
Available: bookshops

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Thoroughly enjoyable

22/3/2018

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Bruce Finds a Home
by Kathryn van Beek

This is a delightful children's story by Kathryn van Beek, made more appealing by Bruce being an INTERNET SENSATION.
Apart from being the author, Kathryn is also the illustrator, so artistic talent shines through in this book.
The pictures are appealing and poignant. Especially the facial expressions. Even Bruce's. There is much more to be found in each picture and any child would be happy to go hunting.
The story is told in rhyme, which is a style I love in children's books.
Bruce is a tiny grey kitten, rescued from the city streets in a thunderous storm, by a young girl names Kate.
He fits into the palm of her hand, and is possibly only a day or two old. So cute!
The pictures are clear and bright, and they cover the atmosphere, surroundings and Bruce's plight, which is now Kate's as she tries to find him a forever home.
Kate sets off around the neighbourhood, asking at first one house and then the next, trying to either find his home or find a new one for him.
But no ... each home she approaches has either already got a cat, is too small for a new kitten, or too crowded with pets already.
A discouraged Kate eventually makes her way to her own home, with Bruce tucked safely away from the lightning storm.
She cannot find a forever home for Bruce.
Now what must she do?
Well done, Kathryn van Beek. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Review by Susan Tarr

Title: Bruce Finds a Home
Author: Kathryn van Beek
Publisher: Mary Egan Publishing
ISBN: 9780473391737
RRP: $20.00
Available: bookshops

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Precision and energy in poetry

15/3/2018

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he’s so MASC
by Chris Tse

Orbiting with wolves requires precision and energy, and Chris Tse’s new poems have both. He leads straight in to it:
The wolves are closing in
    on the ballroom while the band members
look out and brace themselves
for the conflict to come. Shit just got real.
They pick up their instruments
and clear their throats.
1 and 2 and 3 and – (‘Intro’, p 1)
There’s space – fear – uncertainty; there’s wolves – and like it or not, the music is about to begin. Perhaps these are the first notes of ‘The saddest song in the world’, a song of six pages and nine parts, which says:
Every night the world shakes as the saddest song adds another
verse to its menu             then swallows the moon. (p 36)
At the end of this poem, the saddest song dies and “... You will make out/ for the first time     the sound of birds diving through clouds ...” which might (possibly) make the saddest song (almost) worth singing.
Images of distance, of space appear over and over through the collection, and the poet is a man-electron, packed with energy, zipping around one nucleus after another. Or maybe he is the ‘Astronaut’ circling:
Gravity, orbits:
unforgiving attraction
to the things that draw us near but never reach out. (p 61)
But don’t slow down or get too close: it’s not safe out there, all those slavering wolves, each one as dangerous and physical as, perhaps, a lover.
When I was a young wolf undergoing transformation ...
I set my sights on warm hearts whose keepers did not
believe in my kind or in fear. Something in their delusion
dragged at my thirst, ...         (‘Lupine’, p 45)
But young wolves are young, not just wolves, and somewhere on a Saturday night, “Grease” is still the word:
we pair off, disappearing
into friends’ parents’ rooms       garden sheds
under piers and bleachers ...
Tell me more, tell me more.
                                            (‘Summer nights with knife fights’, p 24)
     And more. The poet is constantly moving, from place to place, from person to person, from decision to decision, almost without rest. Is he chasing wolves or escaping from them or looking for one wolf, singular not plural?
     He lives in an urban world – no alpine passes glow and no birds sing. When he seeks ‘Release’, he discovers that:
... my city isn’t chaotic enough for you
    and I will always hate dirt and camping.
    There are adventures for you to collect
    on other full-moon nights and you have
    your life to write
                 elsewhere.   (p 59)
It’s not an inclusive, close-in world Tse inhabits – it’s a stimulating and exciting one in which he always remembers that wolves can be dangerous, even bearing roses. He finishes his book by saying:
    ... Just
  be happy for
  having danced with
  the wolf, his clear
                             solitaire eyes,
                             his tracks in your
                             history. Be
                             brave – press repeat.
(‘Wolf spirit – fade out’, p 82)

Review by Mary Cresswell

Title: he’s so MASC
Author: Chris Tse
Publisher: Auckland University Press
ISBN: 9781869408879
RRP: $29.99
Available: bookshops

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Stop Horsing Around!

8/3/2018

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Track Tales
by Mercedes Webb-Pullman

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book of 30 droll pieces recounting the author’s days as a bookie’s clerical assistant on Sydney racetracks – gallops, trots and dogs.
The author states quite honestly in her entertaining Introduction, that she has, “taken full advantage of poetic licence in descriptions of historical, and hysterical, events.” So there are elements of hyperbole throughout, always adding to the sometimes abrasive humour that permeates each and every tale, although Webb-Pullman does go slightly un-PC in one story, namely The wong Wong, where The Boss spurts out, “…don’t wing the wrong Wong” and the author concludes with, “Seems Robert is the right Wong after all.”
The anecdotes are very easy to read, because of the author’s relaxed and sometimes caustic descriptions of the myriad colourful personages who occupied the various echelons of the ‘racing fraternity’ – including policemen, politicians and trainers – and the often convoluted escapades that ensued when everyone was out to make a fast dollar. You will often laugh out loud and then swiftly turn to the next tale – many of which feature Webb-Pullman’s then husband, the aptly named Mr. Nasty. Indeed, it is well possible to speed through the collection in one session, such is the ribald entertainment contained within.
More, the author is not reluctant to spill out home truths about her marriage, about the agents of the law chasing her, about criminal activities of all breeds – such as drug-running; about sexist males; about the sheer greed of so many of the protagonists and antagonists. Yes, there is some measure of exaggeration concerning the attributes of these actors and their activities, but this never obfuscates the gritty real world of racing, back in the 1970s and 1980s.
I hesitate to call most of these anecdotes, poems, for they are not, nor are they prose poems, given that the first half dozen pieces do have the lilt and imagery of ‘traditional’ poetry. Here such brilliant metaphorical depiction such as, “He shoots me a horrified look from his black hole-in-the-end-of-a-gun-barrel eyes,” (from A thousand cockroaches deep) do indicate Webb-Pullman the poet at play. Later, and more pervasively, however, the tales become brisk stories with vivid vistas of their own – as they delve further into detailing narrative, character and plot, all with an economical metre. The author feeds on short sharp sentences. Doesn’t waste words.
Finally, I have to mention the capture of the especial racetrack-speak of the entire band of brothers (rarely sisters) caught up in ‘the sickness’; that is the overwhelming compulsion to bet at the expense of relationships, possessions, sanity and physical health, in some sort of adrenalin-fuelled existential heightening of the senses. Webb-Pullman has won bigtime in this field, for her pithy raconteur style embellishes every page. Take her visceral depiction and description of her own wedding to the misogynistic Mr. Nasty –
“Honeymoon starts tomorrow – how can I go to the States for six weeks with this prick?”
Take a tip from an old punter: Track Tales is a sure bet; a winner. You can’t lose, eh.

Review by Vaughan Rapatahana

Title: Track Tales
Author: Mercedes Webb-Pullman
Publisher: Truth Serum Press - https://truthserumpress.net/
RRP: US$11.00
Available: paperback, eBooks in the following formats through various platforms (ePub, iBookstore, Kobobooks, Barnes & Noble NOOKbook, Amazon Kindle)

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Powerful and gripping

1/3/2018

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Crystal Reign
by Kelly Lyndon

This is a powerful and gripping book about David, an ex-naval officer, martial arts expert, and engineer, who is faced with a horrible situation when Chrissie, his beautiful wife and mother to their three children is introduced to methamphetamine at a new year’s party.
Her addiction soon becomes uncontrollable and she spirals downward, dragging the family into her personal hell. Her $1000 a day habit costs the family everything that they own financially, including their home, and her personal training business.
Personally, it costs Chrissie much more; she loses the trust of her husband and family. Her friends desert her and the parents of the netball team she coaches shun her and withdraw their children. Her physical appearance deteriorates, her teeth are decayed and even the clothes she wears are dirty and slovenly. She is covered in sores which she has made herself thinking there are demons under her skin. She is reduced to having sex with her supplier in exchange for the drug.
Finally, she is jailed for possessing and selling methamphetamine and appears to have withdrawn from the drug in prison. However immediately after release she falls back into her drug habit worse than before.
Things get even darker for David when Chrissie’s handbag is found floating in Auckland harbour and the police are searching for her body. Suspicion falls on David who the police believe is to blame for her disappearance.
How he copes with this and his own battles with alcohol make for a gripping story that captured me as a reader. David and his children survive thanks to his friends and a generous employer.
The book weaves many familiar facets of New Zealand life, such as All Black matches, commonwealth games, and news events, into a story I could easily relate to, although I found some of the dialogue between Kiwi men a bit stilted and not quite realistic.
Overall this is a very good book and having been a health professional I found the drug scenes and the portrayal of people in the scene very realistic.
I would recommend this book to everyone because it is a believable story about a drug that is tearing the heart out of more and more New Zealanders and their families. It shows that even successful, professional people can lose everything – not just financially but including their self-respect, their families, and every facet of their life.

Review by Harold Bernard

Title: Crystal Reign
Author: Kelly Lyndon
Publisher: Remnant Press
ISBN: 9780473402365
RRP: $34.99
Available: bookshops

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Glorious children's book

Thoroughly enjoyable

Precision and energy in poetry

Stop Horsing Around!

Powerful and gripping

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