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A book to share

26/9/2015

Pussycat Pussycat
and More Purrfect Nursery Rhymes
Illustrator: Donovan Bixley

Gathering the grandchildren around me, together we read Pussycat Pussycat and More Purrfect Nursery Rhymes, illustrated by Donovan Bixley.
The 4 nursery rhymes included in the volume (Pussycat Pussycat, Three Little Kittens, The Cat and the Fiddle, and The Owl and the Pussycat) are old and very well known – it is the illustrations throughout the book that are the perfect gems.
Each double page has a hidden mouse and butterfly for the children to find and some of them are quite disguised. I was convinced a butterfly was missing but the children found it, cunningly hidden in the garden pattern at Buckingham Palace.
There is so much detail in the illustrations – a key hidden in the pot plant by the door, the Queen’s initials etched on her throne and you can almost see fleas on the laughing dog.
This is not a book for a quick read. It is a book to savour, and to examine the pictures closely. It is a book to share and to interact with the preschoolers it is written for. Each time you read it, you find another little pearl is revealed. The cats in the catalliac are delightful, and the owl dancing with the pussy-cat in the silvery moon makes a lovely and almost believable marriage in the minds of young readers.
Pussycat Pussycat... is suitable for preschoolers and those children learning to read. The four nursery rhymes it includes are ones that transcend all generations.
Read it, share it and enjoy it.

Review by Merilyn Mary

Title: Pussycat Pussycat and more Purrfect Nursery Rhymes
Illustrator: Donovan Bixley
Publisher: Upstart Press
ISBN: 978-1-927262-28-3
Available: bookshops

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Playing Sonny Ball

19/9/2015

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Sonny Ball: The Legend of Sonny Bill Williams.
by Paul Kent

This book is written by Paul Kent, himself a rugby league player for Parramatta, now a journalist for The Daily Telegraph and television guest on rugby league shows. The book is unauthorised and has no interviews with Sonny Bill or his personal accounts of events. The author’s position as player and news reporter has given him many insights into Sonny Bill’s time in Australia.
Sonny Ball is unlike the usual book parading triumphant achievements of athletes; rather, it focuses on what went on behind the scenes in the world of player negotiations. The author recounts long and detailed conversations between league officials, and many verbatim quotes from press interviews. These quickly become tedious and I was tempted to skip much of it. The book is not an easy read, but is interesting because it shines a bright light on what goes on beneath the surface of sport.
  Sonny Bill Williams grew up in Mount Albert, Auckland. Due to his remarkable physique and athletic ability, the Sydney Bulldogs snapped him up at a young age. He showed such talent that the club made him the centre of their future planning, letting go senior players to make room for his $400K per year five-year contract. Sonny Bill did not do well in Sydney at first, falling into all the traps an unsophisticated, naïve, suddenly very rich, young man was likely to do – run-ins with police for drink driving, urinating in public, and the infamous incident in an hotel toilet with the Australian female Iron Man champion, which was photographed secretly and released to the world.
  In Sydney he met Manager Khoder Nasser, and Anthony Mundine an Aboriginal League player turned boxer. These two people have had an enormous influence on the life of Sonny Bill. Nasser made no secret that he was only interested in the financial future of his client and was easily able to out-manoeuvre officials of both rugby league and rugby union, secure in the knowledge that no matter what Sonny Bill did, his fame and talent would ensure other teams would scramble to sign him. Paul Kent has termed this shameless breaking of contracts, this constant scheming for more money, “playing Sonny Ball”.
With three years to go on his contract with the Bulldogs, Sonny Bill left without notice, to play for Toulon rugby club in France, for an alleged $1.5 million dollars per year. This move attracted widespread condemnation from league supporters in Australia. Legal pressure forced him to buy out his contract with the Bulldogs.
  In Toulon Sonny Bill had a mixed time. He was badly injured then, desperate to show his worth, returned to play too soon and was forced to take more time off. It was during this period he lived with a Tunisian Muslim family and adopted their Faith, the same Faith as Khoder Nasser and Anthony Mundine.
  A call from Graham Henry the All Black coach, suggesting he might like to play rugby union, meant Sonny Bill left a contract for the second time, returning to New Zealand with the aim of making the Rugby World Cup squad in 2011. The money offered was less than he would have earned in Toulon, but his management team arranged for him to follow Mundine into boxing and top up his earnings. His contract with New Zealand Rugby was negotiated with this in mind. It seems likely they were unhappy with the arrangement until they saw the novice, overweight or just plain past-it, opponents he was listed to fight.
  After securing a ‘sabbatical’ to play in Japan for $1.2 million for half a season, hugely more than his All Black salary, he did not return as expected, but went to play for the Sydney Roosters. His deal there, plus his Japan salary, would bring in over $2 million. In addition, he stood to earn $150,000 or more from each fight arranged.
His value to New Zealand rugby prompted a bending of the rule regarding overseas players for his selection against Australia when Ma’a Nonu and Conrad Smith were injured. Sonny Bill returned to play for the championship-winning Chiefs in 2014. In two years he had won a World Cup, two Bledisloe Cups, and a Super Rugby title. Paul Kent considers this is success.
  At present Sonny Bill is in England with the 2015 All Blacks and it will be interesting to see what role he plays in this and what he does after the tournament is over.
  The cover of the book is starkly black and white, and the paper quality seems inferior – somehow this seems in keeping with the story of a supremely gifted athlete, moving in a world of shadowy deals. I am sure there is a very likeable young man behind this and I just wish the book showed more of him.

Review by Harold Bernard

Title: Sonny Ball: The Legend of Sonny Bill Williams.
Author: Paul Kent
Publisher: Macmillan Australia
ISBN: 9781743534212
Available: bookshops

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Souvenir, tourist kitsch, or cultural icon

13/9/2015

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Vintage Paua Shell Jewellery
Elly van de Wijdeven

   If you grew up in New Zealand sometime between the 1930s and the present, you’ll have seen plenty of the items of jewellery this book is about. Usually, grandmothers and aunts wore them as brooches on lapels, though the occasional necklace or pendant was also seen.
No doubt there are still a good few of them languishing in jewellery boxes around the country. If so, it could be time to bring them out, polish the silver mounts, and wear them again.
It has taken an immigrant from the Netherlands, Elly van de Wijdeven, to produce this study of what has become a Kiwi cultural icon – perhaps because, as she explains, the nation has long had a mixed reaction to such items. Though generally liking paua shell itself, many residents have “publicly professed to hate paua shell jewellery” a reaction very likely due to the varying quality and artistry of the pieces over the decades.
  This book, a handsome hardbacked volume of 192 pages, is subtitled Art Souvenir, Tourist Kitsch, Kiwi Icon. It arises from the Author’s PhD thesis.
  Along with brief histories and backgrounds to the making, production, and distribution of the items, hundreds of colour photos illustrate examples from the 1930s to the 1970s. Most prevalent are kiwis and other native birds, butterflies, tikis, ferns, and fobs, with sailboats, gamefish and other designs that spoke to the generations of New Zealanders over the twentieth century.
  The 1940s inspired brooches and pins with war emblems – even a Lee Enfield rifle and a bren gun. Sports have also inspired a range of lapel ornaments. It seems a buzzy bee is all that’s lacking in this catalogue of cultural motifs.
  The text gives details of particular makers and producers, and the information is well-indexed. All together, this is an informative and very attractive book that should answer the questions of anyone with an interest in jewellery or New Zealand art more generally.

Review by Paua Blue

Title: Vintage Paua Shell Jewellery
Author: Elly van de Wijdeven
Publisher: Bateman
ISBN: 978-1-869539-11-5
Available: bookshops

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A book to share

Playing Sonny Ball

Souvenir, tourist kitsch, or cultural icon

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