Blog Posts - Flaxroots Productions

Glorious children's book

3/31/2018

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

Thoroughly enjoyable

3/22/2018

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

Precision and energy in poetry

3/15/2018

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

Stop Horsing Around!

3/8/2018

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)

Powerful and gripping

3/1/2018

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

Poetry collection reflects sense of balance

2/22/2018

The Light and Dark in our Stuff
by Mere Taito

Mere Taito is Rotuman by ancestry, identifies Fiji as her I-grew-up-here home and New Zealand as her right-now home – a bit of a balancing act at times, which other cultural voyagers can appreciate.
This new collection – ten short poems, each illustrated – reflects her sense of balance: light versus dark, certainly, but also visual versus verbal images, images of destruction and fragmentation versus images of completion. This is a book to tuck in your pocket, to take out and re-read. (It’s also a very good book to give as a present.)
The DARK MATTER is illustrated with uncomfortable, sharp edges, and the poems feel the same way. ‘Bad Charity’ asserts: “we have gifted our bones/ to tears…without a skeleton/ how do we run for cover/ from our own fractures?” And in ‘The Lost Art of Kissing a Government’ “we used to eat their mouths// tear their lips/ crunch their teeth// slit their tonsils/ with our forked tongues”.
The dark poems are about unpleasant matters, buildings which are as defective as people, helicopters bringing privilege into the jungle, bodies turned to salt. (Taito has a good line in dark matter. In the 2007 Suva collection, Writing the Pacific, she recounts a first-class nightmare, and this collection takes the dark side even farther.) ‘This Charmed Life’ presents us with a vivid tar-seal road that “slithers into a village like a hungry boa” devouring everything in its path.
The LIGHT MATTER is full of satisfaction, and completion. The first poem is ‘Good Voodoo’, where carefree toes and feet rise in the flowers: “flat on a spine/ she raises her legs and stops only/ when they are perpendicular to the earth…”.
All the illustrations in this section are of living things: feet, girl, gulls, sun and moon (yes, they live). “stars are born/ from a yellow sun father and/ a blue moon mother … the moon lies on her back/ screaming a night sky// legs trussed up high/ on the shoulders of the sun”.
‘Eumelanin Gorgeous’ is dedicated to the poet’s nieces (“may you always be happy in your own skin”) and begins:
earth brown in a basket is…
    where the life of a pandanus tree begins
    where ecosystems stencil the design of breath
the rains pilgrim south to pay homage to the earthworm and
     the heavens reach down for counsel
The light matters speak of completion, being well-fed, sex born out of stars. The book ends with ‘Fermentere’ – a song of gradual completion, a song of fermentation, a song of making tāhroro, comparing it with a visit to Rotorua where “yellow fumes throttle down/ gently swirling the chunky town/ beneath the hard palette then/ safely back to the soft velum...”.
Tāhroro is a fermented coconut condiment, a delicacy – a flavour you will never find elsewhere because it tastes like your past. Your nearest and dearest write this sort of food off as an acquired taste, and they put up with your eating it because they love you, not because they want a second helping. I think there’s a food like this in most cultures, and it’s a wonderful metaphor for the things we carry with us when we move around the world.

Review by Mary Cresswell

Title: The Light and Dark in our Stuff
Author: Mere Taito
Publisher: Mere Taito (MT Poetry)
ISBN: 978-0-473-41719-2
RRP: $10.00; $14.00 (with postage direct from the author)
Available: From the author, message via Facebook https://www.facebook.com/meretaitopoetry
Writers Plot Readers Read Bookshop (Wellington) https://writersplotreadersread.wordpress.com
Jason Books (Auckland) http://www.jasonbooks.co.nz/

Well planned collection

2/15/2018

Patched Words: A collection of short stories
by Rae McGregor

It’s a small volume – 93 pages, nicely produced, with clear text on good quality paper.
The title and the cover graphic fit well with a short explanation by the author –
This year I have been making quilts. While I was doing it, I thought writing a story was a bit like patchwork. Instead of placing fabric into a design, a writer uses words, which are fashioned to intrigue and interest a reader, just as a quilt intrigues and warms its owner.
This, together with the dedication – for my family and my Eden Village friends – suggests an emphasis on tales that will appeal to, and largely feature, mature women.
And this is borne out in the eleven stories and a poem. Overall, then, this collection is well planned and executed.
In the first, fittingly, a woman makes quilts – the latest holding particular memories. She loved how it had emerged from all Nancy’s clothes, and the backing of her mother’s dress was perfect.
Another bakes, choosing the ingredients with care. It was a good cake. Always rose well, always cut well, and she always had approving comments about the flavour.
All the characters are realistic, living the sorts of lives readers can identify with – learning to adjust to changed conditions, including the death of people close to them. But they are not all acquiescent or submissive. A stroke victim rebels, and more than one of the stories has the theme of revenge.
Altogether, Patched Words is a collection accessible to the majority of readers. It would make a good gift – particularly for an older relative or friend.

Review by J.M.

Title: Patched Words: A collection of short stories
Author: Rae McGregor
Publisher: AM Publishing New Zealand
ISBN: 978-0-9951000-8-4
RRP: $20.00
Available: from the author, mcgregors@xtra.co.nz or 09 6304472

Political shenanigans

1/31/2018

A Sovereign Nation
by D.A. Crossman

This novel is futuristic and set in New Zealand. I thought the title of the book was most appropriate. The word sovereign implies the nation is autonomous under a supreme ruler acting independently without outside interference. In the context of the novel the title is ironic, emphasised by the sentence, “We are at the mercy of the precipitous and the reckless.”
The story contains many duplicitous characters but I felt I never got to know many of them, in much the same way as most of us never get to know those in power and those whose fingers, but not their fingerprints, are in the political plot.
From the point of view of a novel I felt I would have liked to have known the characters better. There were a large number of them and I needed to go back and re-read sections to mentally reposition names and characters.
The story concerns the political intrigues, power play and murders taking place behind the headlines in a nation on the brink of insolvency. It is set in the year 2023, which is within the foreseeable future. A novel, by its nature is fiction and does not have to be a prediction of future events. But I had difficulty extrapolating the New Zealand I know to the vision the author portrayed about five years into the future.
I noticed the occasional grammatical error but it was not enough to detract from the flow of the story. The occasional use of the “f” word could potentially upset some oversensitive readers.
The book would appeal to those interested in political shenanigans. The print version is perfect bound and well presented with an appropriate cover.

Review by Peter Thomas

Title: A Sovereign Nation
Author: D.A. Crossman
Publisher: Starcross Publishing
ISBN: 978-1975823269
RRP: $9.95
Available: Paperback; ebook for kindle
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0756RTG1R

Significant issues raised

1/24/2018

A Short History of the New Zealand Wars
by Gordon McLauchlan

The writer states that his aim was to ‘write a short, accessible story of the New Zealand wars’ in the hope that readers would gain ‘some understanding of… where we have failed and where we have triumphed.’
These worthy intentions have certainly been realised. Neither preachy nor polemical, McLauchlan presents a balanced summary of recent scholarly research on the topic.
   The major incidents of the wars are outlined. For instance, we are reminded of the astonishing skill displayed by Kawiti in the construction of the pā, Ōhaeawai and Ruapekapeka, and of the fact that the Māori forces were never defeated in the north. The dispute over the Waitara block and the subsequent Taranaki Wars, and the growing wariness as to British intentions in the Waikato, are both explained.
The attempt to unite opposition to further encroachments, the King Movement, is put in context, as are the crucial battles at Rangiriri and Ōrākau. The battle at Gate Pa, ‘the most devastating defeat experienced by the British during the course of the New Zealand Wars’, is described, as is the subsequent defeat of Rāwiri Puhirake and his allies at Te Ranga two months later.
A separate chapter is devoted to two men of remarkable military genius – Riwha Tītokowaru in Taranaki/Whanganui, and Te Kooti Arikirangi in Poverty Bay/Te Urewera. These names are also associated with two of the best-known military men on the other side – Gustavus von Tempsky with the former, and Captain Gilbert Mair with the latter – and with the religious movements Pai Mārire and Ringatū respectively.
   Tītokowaru again features alongside Te Whiti and Tohu in the non-violent resistance at Parihaka on 5 November 1881, when the pugnacious Native Minister, John Bryce, led 1600 constabulary against the settlement, to be met by singing children who offered them food. Bryce’s response was to order the destruction of the village and the arrest of the leaders.
   McLauchlan’s focus is clearly on the conflicts between Māori on the one hand, and the British and settler (and kūpapa) forces on the other, which means that he pays only slight attention to the internecine (and at times contemporary) conflicts between Māori groups. For example, some reference is made to the first of the Musket Wars, the campaigns of Ngāpuhi led by Hongi Hika, but Ngāti Toa’s fearsome Te Rauparaha and his nephew Te Rangihaeata, notable for their conflict with (among others) Waikato Tainui, Ngāti Maniapoto, Rangitāne and Ngāi Tahu, receive a mention only in relation to the Wairau Affray of 1843 and the Hutt Valley skirmishes of 1846.
   A central place is given to the Treaty of Waitangi – the misunderstandings regarding its interpretation and the way it was used to ‘justify’ confiscations after the designation and defeat of ‘rebels’. We are reminded, too, that there were always people, on both sides, who wanted peace rather than war; and of how a sense of betrayal, triggered in part by difficulties in reconciling written with customary law, led even some of these to turn to war.
    The author also discusses how for many decades after, little attention was paid either to the Wars themselves or the injustices that Māori suffered in the aftermath. It wasn’t until the late 1950s that a start was made in giving a scholarly and balanced view of the conflicts. A little later, the ‘Māori Renaissance’ of the late 1960s led to such milestone events as Dame Whina Cooper’s hikoi of 1975, the establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal in the same year, and the successful occupation of Bastion Point in 1977-78. From then on there have been determined and on-going efforts to compensate in some manner for the injustices that had been inflicted on Māori, particularly in relation to the right, guaranteed by the Treaty, to the undisturbed possession of land and other taonga. The matter of exactly what the granting to the Queen of ‘sovereignty’ (kāwanatanga) meant to the chiefs when they signed the Treaty, in particular if it meant the cession of the right to self-government, is still a matter of debate.
  In the introduction, McLauchlan observes: ‘Without sincere respect for the past, we remain rootless in the present and flounder towards the future.’ This book deserves a wide readership, not the least because it encourages closer investigation of the very significant issues it raises. These events from our not-so-distant past have intrinsically shaped us, and their effects are very much with us still.

Review by Tony Chapelle

Title: A Short History of the New Zealand Wars
Author: Gordon McLauchlan
Publisher: Bateman
ISBN: 9781869539627
RRP: $29.99
Available: bookshops

Simply delightful

1/17/2018

The Little Mouse's Tail
by Ardi Alemi, Charlotte & Russell Wanhill

This is such a glorious book! The artwork is superb, colourful and simple. As is the storytelling.
I have a 4-year old grandchild who sounds exactly like the little mouse, and would love this story. But the age range extends far beyond four years. (I read it to my 36-year old daughter!)
And the little mouse has beautiful manners – that's important in this day and age where they seem to be lacking in some children.
The pages each have a rhythm that carries this simple but valid message along.
There’s a bookread video of the story available too, in which children can join right in along with the narrator. Each character has its own voice, it's mesmerising.
The moral is simple: When something does not happen the way you want it to...
I am running out of words to describe this book. It is simply delightful.

Review by Susan Tarr

Title: The Little Mouse's Tail
Authors: Ardi Alemi translator & illustrator, Charlotte Wanhill & Russell Wanhill
Publisher: Digital Alchemist Ltd.
ISBN: 9780473392239
RRP: $30
Available: Hardcover book: d-alchemist.com/books and selected Paper Plus Stores, and available to order at The Dorothy Butler Bookshop
E-book: http://amzn.to/2yzuSxk

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