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Attractive to young readers

25/7/2023

Elastic Island Adventures: Rarotonga
by Karen McMillan

What a way to travel. Step onto an elastic island and be transported, or ‘pinged’, to another place “faster than a plane…more environmentally sound…but not for the fainthearted”. Be sure to hold on tight to a palm tree while you’re pinged almost instantly to another landing place.
In this seventh book in the Elastic Island series, a group of children plus a cat and a dog brave the transit and once again visit an exotic spot.
This time, though, there’s a difference. Unlike previous destinations such as Jewel Lagoon, Port Mugaloo, Kingdom of Blong and Flip Flop Bay, they travel to a real place – Rarotonga.
They’re hoping for a relaxing time but once on the island find there’s a mystery to be solved. They take up the challenge which leads them on a tour to places of local interest and cultural experiences. If you’ve been to Rarotonga you’ll be aware of at least some of them. Each location gives them a clue to the next – the clues being solvable by children in the target readership of 7 to 12 years.
Karen McMillan has an easy straightforward way of writing, and the layout is attractive to young readers. If you’ve missed out on the series so far, no problem, for this one stands on its own.

Review by Jacqui Lynne

Title: Elastic Island Adventures: Rarotonga
Author: Karen McMillan
Publisher: Duckling Publishing
ISBN: 9781991170194
RRP: $21.99
Available: bookshops

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Absorbing Coming of Age Story

18/7/2023

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Eat and Get Gas, a novel
by J.A. Wright

Eat and Get Gas is an engaging story told from a teenager’s point of view.
J.A. Wright creates a compelling voice for Evan, whose life in the USA is framed by the challenges of her family. Evan’s father is a Vietnam vet, her mother has multiple sclerosis, her younger brother has learning difficulties and her older brother (Adam) just received his Vietnam war draft papers.
Evan’s mother goes with Adam across the border into Canada so Adam can avoid becoming like his father – messed up. “When I asked [Mum] if she thought the war had changed Dad … she said only his good parts,” Evan tells us. Evan’s dad has acquired a second family to return to in Vietnam so he doesn’t want to look after Evan. He organises for Evan to stay with her grandmother at ‘Eat and Get Gas’ – a café combined with a gas station in Hoquiam, Washington. There Evan meets a further set of unusual characters, including her forthright Aunt Vivian, Uncle Frankie who has PTSD, Frankie’s sister Louanne badly scarred by a car crash, and Paco, a draft dodger Frankie has taken in.
Evan’s coming of age is described in relation to her relations in a very believable way. J.A. Wright captures the impact of the Vietnam war on American society well and a good amount of humour lightens what could be a dark narrative. Occasionally, the number of characters and need to keep track of their stories became challenging. However, J.A. Wright does a good job of giving them all unique voices. In addition, all the players have their redeeming features, making them likeable, sometimes in odd ways.
I highly recommend ‘Eat and Get Gas’, which embeds plenty of deeper meaning in its easily digested narrative.

Review by Jane Shearer

Title: Eat and Get Gas, a novel
Author: J.A. Wright
Publisher: Toad Ltd. (NZ only) She Writes Press (USA/Canada)
ISBN: 978-1647424817
RRP: $29.95 NZD
Available: Paperback, ebook, audiobook
Nationwide Books distributes the paperback version in NZ. Most online book retailers sell the paperback, ebook and audio versions, including Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Indiebound, Betterworld Books, Powells etc.

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Past political figure reassessed

10/7/2023

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We Need to talk about Norman: New Zealand’s lost leader
by Denis Welch

Denis Welch’s book is about Norman Kirk, in the first instance, whom he describes as an inspirational leader. Apparently there have only one or two others, and they have also been Labour prime ministers.
The book begins with an attempt to find some continuity between Kirk and recent leaders. But most of the text is a commentary about economic and societal change since the 1970s. This is more interesting, partly because one has to now be a senior citizen to have a full memory of Kirk.
Welch’s book doesn’t have an actual structure – at least there is no contents page, and it reads more like a personal essay. Or perhaps like an old-style Listener article that has been extended. Welch was an political columnist for many years, but is somewhat less convincing as a historian, especially on economic issues.
Everything comes back to what he calls ‘neoliberal ideology’, which apparently has captured the policy process and political leaders since 1984. We are familiar with the policies, and the events of the Rogernomics period, as it was called at the time. Basically it involves opening everything up to international finance, and restricting the role of the elected government in managing money; while every commercial activity has to be undertaken by the private sector.
Welch ends with a list of policy activities that had been initiated or promoted by Kirk’s Labour Government. Some of them were implemented by what were known as ‘statutory corporations’, such as the Development Finance Corporation, or the Housing Corporation. All of these relatively innovative organisations were restructured or privatised in the 1980s, and only ACC remains from that era. So essentially Roger Douglas and co. undid everything that Kirk had attempted to do.
All of this is well known, or has been analysed before, without great insight into the causes. Kirk himself has already been the subject of one detailed biography and the publication of diaries kept by his assistant, Margaret Hayward. Welch does not add a lot of new information here, although there is more detail about Kirk’s failing health following international visits. We already know that Norman Kirk was a modest man, a working class autodidact, and a moral conservative in an age of what he called permissiveness. Although he was deeply mourned at the time was he a transitional figure?
I personally remember when Big Norm died, despite just having started school around the time. I happened to be in Christchurch, in the electorate seat which Kirk held, and where my grandparents lived. Safe to say that not everybody mourned, or that he was universally respected. Denis Welch was then a young man in his twenties, who was actually living in England during the time of Kirk’s premiership. He admits to not having been that impressed at the time; not just with Norman Kirk as a leader, but with New Zealand society, which he describes as being stultifying and too conformist.
Well that portrays the view of the baby boomer, brought up within the regulated welfare state at a time of great prosperity. The society that Kirk defended was in a sense closed, at least because of what was known as the policy of ‘insulation’, aimed at protecting vulnerable industries and jobs, if not all the people. The baby-boomers who returned from their O.E. after 1984 found a much more cosmopolitan culture, and open society, as well as then benefitting from repeated tax cuts and rising property values. Meanwhile the working class disappeared as a political force, and left the field to the professional/managerial stratum, of which the author could be categorised within, if not one he identifies with. Having another charismatic Labour leader hasn’t really changed that structure.

Review by S A Boyce

Title: We Need to talk about Norman: New Zealand’s lost leader
Author: Denis Welch
Publisher: Quentin Wilson Publishing
ISBN: 9781991103055
RRP: $39.99
Available: bookshops

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Well-written and researched history

3/7/2023

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Chameleon
by MJ Burr

The Fourth Reich growing in New Zealand? Stuff of fantasies, mate. Not a chance. Nah. Couldn’t happen. Could it?
Don’t judge a book by its cover is the phrase and I’ve never mentioned a book’s cover in a review before but, I have to say, this cover is the most impressive of any book I’ve reviewed for FlaxFlower. It’s atmospheric and it drew me to open the pages.
The first couple of chapters are a gritty, absorbing introduction to this novel. Part One itself is tight, visceral with plenty of well-written and researched history. Great characters with complexities, the combatants of World War Two showing us neither side came out of the war without some very unsettling events staining their histories.
Joe Vukovic, of Maori/Croatian descent is thrown into the role of patriot, resistance fighter against the Germans. He witnesses and is personally impacted by the events of 1943, when the Totenkopf Division of the Waffen SS, in a retaliatory response, massacre the remaining inhabitants of the Croat village of Lipa. Joe’s pregnant fiancée is gunned downed by the officer in charge and Joe, unable to help her, becomes a vengeful spirit with a death-wish.
Years after the war, Joe finds a measure peace in Northland, the memory of Lipa and his fiancée, though, have never been forgotten. Joe shapes his life around trying to discover what happened to the SS officer Jager. Events and discoveries begin to offer proof of the seemingly impossible – the Fourth Reich has a foothold in Northland.
There are some lovely lines in this book. Page 8 …luxuries wrapped as necessities… is a beautifully placed piece of black, black humour. Further through, the likening of Simon Wiesenthal to a waiting stork is lovely, too.
I learned more about the depravity of the Nazi regime and its ideals. The Lebensborn programme was startling. Burr gives us a fascinating premise. We know New Zealand was on Hitler’s radar, German submarines prowled our coastlines and harbours. That something like this story could have happened has been written very believably.
The domestic situations are nicely written, too. Joe’s growth as a man damaged after the traumatic events of his war years is well presented. Broken relationships, changed relationships are all represented here. Redemption through vengeance and all the moral complications such a path brings are highlighted through several characters. All too often German soldiers from World War Two are portrayed as one-dimensional baddies. Burr never falls into that easy route, giving his readers much more to think about.
A very interesting read which had me reaching for the history books.
Much thanks to MJ Burr for the opportunity to review this well-written book.

Review by TJ Ramsay

Title: Chameleon
Author: MJ Burr
Publisher: ClioWrite Limited
ISBN: 9780473655365
RRP: $33 Paperback; $4.99 Kindle
Available: Amazon: Kindle US$4.99, Paperback US$19.99
Author: Kindle NZ$4.99, Paperback NZ$33 [email protected]

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Attractive to young readers

Absorbing Coming of Age Story

Past political figure reassessed

Well-written and researched history

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