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Realistic, practical, upbeat

10/24/2015

Unbreakable Spirit
by Karen McMillan

There can’t be many people who have not been touched by cancer, personally or through friends and family. It is a disease with many forms, many names. It is a bogey disease that scares us, at least partly because we don’t know enough about its various manifestations, and what can, or should, be done when struck down by it. And while there is a mountain of information available if one has the time and the inclination to go looking for it, a lot of it can seem too clinical, too complicated, too obscure, or too darned hard to grapple with.
   If there is one thing that can be said about cancer it is that, as Karen McMillan remarks in her introduction, there is no ABC about the disease: “Every person’s story is completely different. People with the same cancer can have different symptoms.” Treatments can vary; the same treatments can affect different people in different ways. Patients and their friends and families react in all the ways there are when faced with the realities of a diagnosis that is going to change their lives. They need information, comfort and help.
   Karen McMillan’s own family has become very familiar with the disease, and she herself is a breast cancer survivor. For this book she has collected a wide range of personal accounts, which cover just about everything from diagnosis to death and all the issues that can arise in between. Her approach has been to interview a variety of people from medical and surgical specialists, doctors and hospital staff, as well as patients and everyone around them. These are all people who know what it is like to have cancer, or who know what to do about it, how to deal with it or perhaps, in the end, how to manage the dying from it.
   This is not a cancer handbook. Rather it is a realistic, practical and remarkably upbeat book of more than 300 pages that could help to explain many aspects of a disease that is becoming much better understood these days. It will answer many questions, offer some hope, and most especially it should demystify cancer by bringing it out into the open and talked about, frankly and clearly.

Review by Joan Curry

Title: Unbreakable Spirit
Author: Karen McMillan
Publisher: McKenzie Publishing
ISBN: 978 0 473 31718 8
Available: Bookshops. RRP $34.99

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A beautifully presented book

10/19/2015

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What Ever Happened to Milo?
by Claire Bunt
Illustrations by Philip Webb

What Ever Happened to Milo? is a beautifully presented hard cover book positively inviting caress with the fingertips – so silky smooth is the cover, and so entrancing the colours used by Philip Webb in his illustrations. Thus enticed, one turns the pages. The inside covers have delightful sketches of both kitten and seagull in various poses on a pale egg-shell blue background. The illustrations follow the story, one of my favourites being the purposeful Morepork family escorting Milo along a darkened country lane.
Amongst these pictorial delights there are several discrepancies in the yacht drawings which someone familiar with boats would pick up. For instance the kicking strap on the boom of the yacht is tethered to the grab rail on the cabin top instead of to the base of the mast, and on the moored yacht the sail is stowed beneath the boom instead of on top. The colours throughout are beautiful and will surely appeal to all ages.
The narrative is divided into twenty chapters of suitable length for young readers able to cope with chapter books. There is a prologue, written in the first person, explaining why Milo was taken on board the yacht. The main body of the story is written in the third person and relates the adventures Milo had, and the people with whom he came into contact, when he was accidently separated from his owners and had to rely on himself and a seagull friend for sustenance.
The anthropomorphic nature of the tale suggests it is aimed at younger readers though I would be surprised if those same children, reading for themselves, would understand all the words used in the text. Having said that, there can be value in familiarising children with moderately sophisticated language when being read to, thus extending their vocabulary.
I felt some of the phrases used are somewhat dated and there is some harshness in the dialogue particularly when the characters are addressing each other and employing ‘put downs’, while admitting some of these are what keeps the story moving. Mention of the breed of the kitten, a Birman-Ragdoll, seems rather superfluous in a book for young children. Milo has lots of adventures, aided by Solly the seagull, in his search for food and shelter during the three months he was lost.
Taken as a whole the book has the potential to be an adventurous, enjoyable and possibly breath-taking read for the right age group and I wish it well in its aim to raise funds for UNICEF NZ.

Review by Irene Thomas

Title: What Ever Happened to Milo?
Author: Claire Bunt. Illustrator: Philip Webb
Publisher: Arthur Publishing House
ISBN: 978-0-9941202-3-6
Available: cbunt@xtra.co.nz; www.thebestlittlebookstore.co.nz; Paper Plus Onehunga

NOTE: Another two of Claire Bunt & Philip Webb's books, The Green Hat That Blew Away & A Day of Surprises, were reviewed here on 31 July - see below or Archives
Claire and Philip not only make culture-friendly readers for Pacific children, but several thousand dollars earned from sales have benefitted UNICEF.

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Story will appeal to children

10/13/2015

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Mister Spears and his Hairy Ears
by Dawn McMillan
Illustrations by Ross Kinnaird

A story to appeal to children with a fascination with extreme or aberrant bodily parts or functions. I guess that means most, perhaps all, kids.
     Mister Spears’ problem, as the title tells, is that he has hairy ears. He doesn’t just have hairy ears in the way he might have a hairy chin. Not just a modicum of hair growing on the exterior, oh no. He suffers from ear hair. Extreme ear hair. Mister Spears’ ears sprout hair from within. Long, prolific, and apparently super fast-growing, for rather than just trimming it as it appears, he has to resort to extraordinary methods to control it.
     Dawn McMillan, a Coromandel writer, tells the tale in verse form. The rhyming pattern and metre are not strict so the reader, whether parent or child, has to adapt as the story unrolls.
     The colourful illustrations by Ross Kinnaird are very appealing. Younger children can spend some time enjoying these and following recurring motifs through the book.
Quality glossy paper makes this a good-looking book that should be enjoyed by children up to about eight years old.

Review by Emily R

Title: Mister Spears and his Hairy Ears
Author: Dawn McMillan, Illustrations by Ross Kinnaird
Publisher: Libro International
ISBN: 978-1-877514-84-5
Available: Bookshops

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Stories deserve to be savoured

10/3/2015

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Original Sin
by Tony Chapelle

What a treat! Here is a book of twenty-five short stories to satisfy the appetites of a wide range of readers. Please don’t read them all at once, however tempting that might seem. They deserve to be savoured. They need to sink in; they need respect and consideration; they need space for thoughts to linger.
   The stories reveal Tony Chapelle to be a man with versatile writing talents and a generous understanding of the human condition. He clearly knows about music and art and literature, but allows their influence to remain subtle, undemanding. His characters are people we know, or might know if we could see past the drawn curtains of their lives. They are people we might not want to know, but who nevertheless engage our attention. They are people who harbour secrets, who live on the edge, or who have been affected by circumstances or events that change them. They are people whose lives may not be like ours, but who excite our interest, inspire our sympathy or make us aware of matters outside our experience.
   The subject matter is everyday and therefore accessible, but always finely observed and sometimes with a twist. They nearly always begin arrestingly. That is, Chapelle has a knack for the interest-grabbing opening that draws the reader in and holds the attention for what follows. And although the stories are about things that may be familiar to us, they are far from humdrum. Here are holidays at the beach, neighbours, the mistakes people make and regret, events from the past that rise up to haunt us – and of course families. Always fertile areas for stories, families of all kinds are caught at some significant point and observed as events unfold.
   The moods change too; sometimes sensual, sometimes ominous or enigmatic but always appropriate. There may be undercurrents. It is not surprising that Chapelle has an impressive list of credentials, and has won or been placed in many competitions. His work has been published in a variety of magazines and newspapers and broadcast on the radio. This is a fine collection of stories that can hardly fail to entertain, by a man who has a deft way with words.

Review by Joan Curry

Title: Original Sin
Author: Tony Chapelle
Publisher: Rangitawa Publishing
ISBN: 978-0-9941201-8-2
Available: Amazon, Rangitawa Publishing, Bruce McKenzie Booksellers

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Realistic, practical, upbeat

A beautifully presented book

Story will appeal to children

Stories deserve to be savoured

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