Blog Posts - Flaxroots Productions

Children’s book thought-provoking

25/7/2018

My Grandfather’s War
by Glyn Harper & Jenny Cooper

War is never an easy subject for a children’s book, but this beautifully illustrated 32 page picture book addresses the Vietnam War with finesse.
Eight year old Sarah has a close bond with her grandfather but wonders why sometimes he gets sad. Her curiosity is aroused when she discovers he was a Vietnam veteran, so she asks her grandfather about the war.
The text is age appropriate for younger readers and the full page illustrations skilfully represent the storyline.
Kids may have questions after reading this thought-provoking story so the reference section at the end of the story, providing a summary of facts about the Vietnam War, is useful. The section finishes with a commentary highlighting how many veterans were treated by their countries on their return home.

Review by WJ Scott
children’s author

Title: My Grandfather’s War
Author: Glyn Harper & Jenny Cooper
Publisher: Exisle
ISBN: 9781775592990
RRP: $24.99
Available: Now at www.exislepublishing.com

Wildly creative story

7/7/2018

Elastic Island Adventures Jewel Lagoon
by Karen McMillan

Unwrapping a mysterious book-shaped package is always a delight and the moment my gaze touched upon the bright cover and wonderful illustrations I sensed I’d uncovered a gem. This is a standout book cover that entreats children to grab it off the shelf.
Physically, the book felt solid nestled in my palms and the front cover begged me to flip it open. Inside the book, styling, formatting, and text were professionally executed. The text is large enough to appear non-threatening to an emergent reader.
Jewel Lagoon may sound like a paradise but when the children are unexpectedly catapulted out of their ordinary lives they find themselves in mortal danger where they bounce from one dangerous situation to the next and are never quite sure who they can trust in this strange land. Some of the themes are dark (kidnapping, maiming, and murder) but they are handled with sensitivity.
The story is wildly creative and populated with an array of vibrant characters, including adaptations of animals many children will recognise. The four main characters: Kiri, Jed, and twins Emma, and Ethan, have distinct personalities and varying skill sets which help them navigate through the challenges they face on their adventure.
Children will identify with particular characters as they find common denominators with their own lives.
The story works as a stand-alone read and there’s plenty of scope for more tropical island adventures in this series.

Review by WJ Scott
children’s author

Title: Elastic Island Adventures Jewel Lagoon
Author: Karen McMillan
Publisher: Duckling Publishing
ISBN:9780473427542
RRP:$19.99
Available: bookshops

Welcome back, Wally

2/7/2018

Woolly Wally
by Dawn McMillan
Illustrations by Ross Kinnaird

Woolly Wally is back. First published as a popular Reed title 12 years ago, it’s reappeared in a new edition to be enjoyed by another crop of Kiwi kids.
And, I suspect, lots of adults will like it even more than the littlies they read it to.
Wally’s the farm ram. He’s a big hair guy, immensely proud of his fleece and taking pride in its superior quality – thick and crinkled, extra fine, long and waxy, perfect fibre. And he knows its value to impress the ewes. Until –

…one day in sunny weather
   All the sheep were gathered together
   Wally in front, and off to the shed;
   An uneasy feeling in his head!
   Hadn’t he been here just last year
   Did he hear someone say…
Yep, in a few passes of a handpiece it’s now un-woolly Wally, at least for a few weeks; but long enough, it’s hoped, for him to learn the lesson pointed out at the story’s conclusion.
Adults, and children who grow up on farms, will fill in the gaps (“all ewes girls will be mums”) that add to the depth of the woolly Wally’s pride in his appearance and performance.
The illustrations help greatly too. The difference, particularly the facial expressions, between the big and the bald are most telling.
And the colour pictures provide additional fun for little ones in spotting the presence of both the author and the illustrator on most pages – see the back page for a clue.
Welcome back, Woolly Wally.

Review by Emily R.

Title: Woolly Wally
Author: Dawn McMillan. Illustrator: Ross Kinnaird
Publisher: Oratia Books
ISBN: 978-0-947506-42-1
RRP: $19.99
Available: bookshops. Oratia Media https://www.oratia.co.nz

Crafted by a master storyteller

26/6/2018

Hellholes of the World
by David G Brown

I have often wondered why I never had the courage to back pack around the world. This is quite apart from family responsibilities. After reading ‘Hell Holes of the World’ I have my answer. I could not bear to go for days without a shower, sleep in hovels and not know if I had a bed for the night.
What I particularly liked about this book was that it took me to the places I would never dare visit and allowed me to at least have a peek, to feel the grime, to smell the polluted air and to meet the people. That was the magic. I met people I would never encounter in real life.
David takes us to meet them through his vivid description and storytelling.  A lot of it is grim but there are moments of incredible beauty and they explain why David went to such lengths to visit these isolated and often dangerous places.
We quickly realise that these places have not been given a make-over for the tourist. They are raw, war torn or neglected.
What I found most interesting was not so much the physical journey, which was fascinating and arduous, but rather David’s journey as a human being.
He began his story on a kibbutz in Israel where he worked as a volunteer. The international and local community partied through the night and worked during the day. Palestine was just over the fence but no-one seemed to notice or care.
Twenty years later he visited the area and stood on Golan Heights looking at the kibbutz through the border and with a different perspective. He had travelled to almost 100 countries by that time and experienced life at its rawest and seen people at their most deprived. As we read his story we are reading an account of a young man’s transformation into an adult. This was never more pronounced than when he looked at his old kibbutz from the Golan Heights.
He wrote, ‘The wall between Lebanon and Israel felt as great as the wall between who I had become and who I once was.” (215)
That moment of looking back at the kibbutz, which he could never visit again, is also a metaphor for David’s life. He was always the observer never the observed. Where ever he went he had an escape, unlike the people whose lives he briefly touched. There was no place he could call home. He even felt he did not fit in New Zealand, the place of his birth. Although he did come to a kind of accommodation with his birth country it was still uneasy. The closest he got to finding the country where his spirit could rest was Israel.
But as I read through this book, crafted by a master storyteller, I realized I was following the trajectory of a man’s life from innocence to maturity. He knew the world we live in far more intimately than most of us will ever know it and that changed him. But we also are changed in a small way simply by sharing his journey.
‘Hell Holes of the World’ is a wonderful book and I would recommend it to anyone. David was a citizen of the world. He did not belong anywhere yet his curiosity led him to discover the human condition in a way that only those who lived in his ‘Hell Holes’ could.

Review by Suraya Dewing
CEO, Stylefit (formerly The Story Mint) http://www.thestorymint.com

Title: Hellholes of the World: A Love Story
Author: David G. Brown
Publisher: Archetype Book Agents
ISBN: 978 047341 782 6
RRP: $35
Available: bookshops

Soft lullaby of a book

21/6/2018

Arlo and the Gingko Tree
by Sophie Siers
illustrated by Kate Twhigg

Sophie Sier's picture book Arlo and the Ginkgo Tree, illustrated by Kate Twhigg, is about a little boy named Arlo and a special tree at the bottom of his garden.
His tree has a special way for him to climb up and a special spot just for him to sit.
Through the changing seasons, Arlo discovers that this tree truly is special – not just to him, but to some new little friends as well!
Arlo and the Ginkgo Tree is a simple story, using repetition – particularly of the word ‘special’ – and sensory description to remind us to sit in quiet wonder at the small things in the world around us. It is a message that comes naturally to children and is good to remember as adults too.
We learn with Arlo to wait and watch from one spring right through a year to another, as birds and butterflies cycle back to their shared home in the tree.
The narrative and illustrations are sweet – especially the three tiny chicks drawn in their nest – and the overall impression is that Arlo and the Ginkgo Tree is a soft, lullaby of a book about nature.

Review by Jenny Palmer

Title: Arlo and the Ginkgo Tree
Author: Sophie Siers; Kate Twhigg
Publisher: Millwood Press
ISBN: 978-0-473-41094-0
RRP: $19.99
Available: bookshops

Inspiring story

14/6/2018

Adrift in the Fog: a Journey of Rediscovery
by C C Johannes Peet

From despair and depression to hope and new directions.
Peet’s misfortunes began with the onset of blindness caused by Stargardt’s disease, a form of macular degeneration. He was 42 years old and a wine expert and winemaker. Within 6 years he was legally blind.
In Adrift in the Fog he recounts his frustration at not being able to fend for himself and how easily he was taken advantage of by his would-be carer. He tells of the bleak depths of his subsequent depression, bordering on suicidal.
When it seems his life can’t get any worse the New Zealand Blind Foundation come to his aid with special computer software and gadgets and he gradually emerges from his depression and begins to take an interest in life again. He inadvertently joins a computer dating site and almost as an afterthought takes a second look at a photo of the Russian woman he now calls his Mona Lisa. He’s in his mid-50s by now, legally blind, struggling on a disability benefit and understandably full of misgivings about himself. Thanks to Mona Lisa he is back on an optimistic, upward curve.
With unflinching honesty, blind, and writing in his second language, he shares his most intimate feelings as the relationship develops.
Peet’s blindness aside, I feel many people, women as well as men, will be able to identify with his story of embarking on a new relationship in middle-age – an experience that is further complicated by issues of mental health and alcohol misuse.
Adrift in the Fog is, in spite of its gloomy title and muted cover, an inspiring read. The author comes to terms with himself. Defying his blindness and the dramatic changes that it has brought to his life, he re-finds himself and rediscovers a sense of optimism and of self.
Peet writes in a straightforward, no-nonsense style, making Adrift in the Fog an easy read. The ending leaves us wondering What next? so there is scope here for more of Peet’s engaging story telling. Discerning readers will pick up on proofreading oversights, but these shouldn’t interfere with an appreciation of Peet’s story.

Review by Carolyn McKenzie
Writer, freelance proofreader, copy editor, & translator from Italian to English.
Carolyn kindly offers accommodation at reasonable rates for FlaxFlower writers
in Thames (Waikato) and Ventimiglia Alta (Liguria, Italy). carolynmckenzie@libero.it

Title: Adrift in the Fog: a Journey of Rediscovery
Author: C C Johannes Peet
ISBN: 978-0-473-42384-1
RRP: $24.95 incl. P.&P.
Available: Paperback private sales: info.redhenbooks@gmail.co

Really good story

7/6/2018

Out of the Wild
by Charlie Paterson

This book tells the experiences of Charlie Paterson who discovered that there were surveyed, legal titles that could be bought in Fiordland National Park, in the abandoned settlement of Jamestown Bay which was originally designed to connect the goldfields of Central Otago to Sydney. If the local body rates were not paid, the sections reverted to the Southland District Council.
Charlie managed to locate the owners of two sections that were still in private hands and was able to buy the land. His intention was to build and operate an upmarket lodge to cater for trampers, hunters and nature lovers. The struggle he had overcoming bureaucracy, vested interests, and the severe climate is the theme of this book.
I found his account of getting the building materials to Jamestown Bay by floating them down the Hollyford river on a totally inadequate boat, and then across Lake McKerrow to the building site quite heroic. When the boat sank and deposited all his supplies into the lake, Charlie was plunged into the depths of despair, rescued only by the efforts of locals who aided him without thought for themselves or money.
He took two years to build the lodge, aided by friends and some tradesmen helicoptered in for brief periods. He succeeded finally, but the lodge did not prosper. The delay in building saw his idea overtaken by people with much more money to spend on advertising and transport, and they creamed the tourists.
Because Charlie had no money to buy a fridge or freezer, his diet consisted of venison he hunted, and rolled oats and other food that would not perish. This lack of fresh vegetables or fruit, and the continual stress of fighting bureaucracy affected his health, and Charlie became malnourished and ill. Finally, he was forced to sell the property, albeit at a significant profit.
However, the story is not a negative one. It is written in flashbacks, giving the story of the build. The scenes written in the present beautifully describe the peace of the forest and its inhabitants. Although Charlie is appalled by the harm done to the environment by introduced predators such as stoats, rats, and the destruction of the forest by deer and possums, he finds in the majesty of the wild mountains and the forest, the presence of a Creator and becomes firmly convinced of the existence of a caring God.
I found the latter part of the book a little disappointing because in several places Charlie expresses his desire for a meaningful relationship with a caring woman. Further on he includes a beautiful colour photo of his wife Bronwyn, and their two children, followed by a photo of him on a volunteer house build in North Malawi. However, there is no explanation of these events, and I felt that the book was not complete without telling these parts of his story.
The book is printed on good quality paper, which allows the inclusion of many colour photos which I really appreciated. There are several spelling mistakes which grate a little, but which do not detract from a really good story, and I can recommend this book as a good read.

Review by Harold Bernard

Title: Out of the Wild
Author: Charlie Paterson
Publisher: Charlie Paterson
ISBN: 978-0-473-41454-2
RRP: $39.90
Available: bookshops; email charliewilderness@hotmail.com, website https://purewilderness.co.nz/
Amazon as ebook (ASIN:B079NMTWFL) or paperback (ISBN 9781980245544)

Truth being stranger than fiction

31/5/2018

An End of Honour
by M J Burr

It is a brave undertaking to write any novel, and even more so in the case of an historical novel as the author must know every aspect of the period. The inclusion of real people among the characters, details of whose lives are recorded and known, adds a further huge dimension and demands careful handling in order to portray them fairly.
M J Burr has taken up such a challenge in his novel An End of Honour, and he succeeds admirably.
The main period covered is the 1860s; the places – southern states of USA, and New Zealand. The American Civil War is drawing to a close and the Land Wars in this country escalating.
The central character, John Selby Hunter, Captain of a Confederate cavalry troop, leaves his West Virginia home for good reason and travels to New Zealand where he is persuaded by Governor Grey to accept a commission in the mounted division of the New Zealand Armed Constabulary.
The working in of actual battles in Taranaki, details of weaponry, cultural customs of different peoples and their intersection, all show there has been a huge amount of research undertaken by M J Burr to inform his crafting of this work. Real figures from New Zealand history are brought alive on the page as they are encountered by Hunter – Thomas McDonnell, Gustavus von Tempsky, Donald McLean, Robert Wynyard, George Whitmore, Governors Gore Browne and George Grey, premier Edward Stafford, and others of colonial society; Maori leaders and personalities including Rewi Maniapoto, Tikaokao, Titokowaru, Kereopa; with the renegade American Kimble Bent between the two.
The author notes – This novel follows the historical record as faithfully as a work of fiction might, because I am wedded to the notion of truth being stranger than fiction.
If I have any criticism of this novel, it is with the subtitle – a novel of Titokowaru’s War. It is that, yes, but it is more than that, and I found myself becoming immersed in further storylines that are part of the whole book – Hunter’s Civil War experiences, gun smuggling, details of the social life of settlers in this country 150 years ago. There’s some consideration of varying views of Darwin’s work On the Origin of Species, recently published at the time. And there’s a love story intermeshed with the main story – well handled, not sentimental.
All’s fair in love and war, it is said, but is it really? As the title points to, the main theme of the book is that of honour, and this is developed well through the story lines – relating to society, ethics, warfare, and love.
Throughout, the fluent writing and realistic dialogue makes this book easy reading.
Recommended for anyone with any interest in New Zealand’s past, or for those who simply enjoy a good story. It's one that will stay with me while others fade from memory.

Review by I Reddit

Title: An End of Honour
Author: M J Burr
Publisher: ClioWrite Ltd
ISBN: 978-0-473-26061-3
Available: paper via www.cliowrite.com; Email info@cliowrite.com; Post 36 Wairau Road; Oakura, Taranaki 4314. Telephone / fax 06 7527 50; Ebook via Amazon

Important grief story

25/5/2018

The Gift Horse
by Sophie Siers
Illustrated by Katharine White

The Gift Horse, written by Sophie Siers and illustrated by Katharine White, is the rural tale of a girl named Olivia and her family, following the loss of her mother. It is an important grief story, with lovely, relatable descriptions of sadness such as -
...in her bed where she can pull the duvet over her head and make the world silent around her.
and expressive metaphors like -
She feels like there's a balloon in her chest which is blown up so tight that there's no room for anything else. It squishes right up into her throat; sometimes she feels like she can't breathe.
The portrayals of feelings as they change - questioning why, being angry and feeling numb - will be so recognizable and validating to children experiencing loss or sorrow. All the grief stages, and the importance of one's unique walk through them, are thoughtfully referenced through Olivia's emotions.
People just don't understand. She would cry, but there aren't any tears. The big
balloon has pushed everything away and her heart feels empty inside.
In this backdrop, the arrival of a young horse, himself traumatized – a parallel to Olivia's character – is an uplifting, hopeful storyline. It's a special connection to Olivia's mother, who also had a way with horses, and a path towards feeling close with her again. It's also a chance for Olivia to find some catharsis and to help herself through this journey, in her own time and her own way.
The overall themes of grief and the healing of time and love are well handled in The Gift Horse. The illustrations really support the feelings, with dark pastel scribbles isolating bleak moments and whirls of moving, colourful pastel giving movement and life to turnaround scenes. They're appropriate for children in their style, as is the simple text, so there is a wide range in age appeal.
The ideas are universal, helpful and, of course, we all love a happy, hopeful ending.

Review by Jenny Palmer

Title: The Gift Horse
Author: Sophie Seirs. Illustrator: Katharine White
Publisher: Millwood Press
ISBN: 9780473408558
RRP: $19.99
Available: bookshops

One for yachties

18/5/2018

Doumar and the Doctor
by Neville de Villiers

This is the story of a mostly solo yachting expedition by the author from England to New Zealand, via the Mediterranean, in 1980. It seems to have been a one way passage in his smallish yacht, the Doumar, as he finally reaches Whangarei and decides to settle there. The sub-title of the book labels him as a “courageous adventurer,” but perhaps it might be best to describe de Villiers as being very lucky.
The book is certainly a vivid tale, and a well remembered blow by blow account of all the action at sea. On the one hand it has an element of ‘derring do’ and the honest reflection of an amateur adventurer. On the other hand, the author leaves behind his wife and two young children, which could be seen as irresponsible in the extreme given the task he pursues after his crew abandons ship on the French canals. Indeed, it is hard to believe that it was a good decision to carry on solo, but he does survive.
Unfortunately, the book itself seems to be limited by the subject matter and the ability of the storyteller. The description of the sailing experience inevitably uses very specific terminology that the general reader won’t understand. Even with a glossary of sailing terms at the end of the book it is still difficult to follow. The author provides some biographical context at the beginning of the book but the rest is more like a diary, rather than a story. He does make the odd aside about certain aspects of his life, but without any continuity as a story. For instance, he often refers to a book by Naomi James which is apparently about her solo yachting, but doesn’t bother to give the title.
Although the cover of the book is well-designed the contents indicate the limitations of self-publishing. The sentences and paragraphs are not especially well constructed, particularly for grammar; and the book needs more proof-reading. There are hand-drawn maps at the beginning of each chapter which are inadequate really, and while the other illustrations are better drawings they don’t add much to the book. The author’s photographs have come out well but are mostly too small to be effective.
So this is one for the yachties mostly, as a tribute to a man’s relationship with his beloved boat, but it could have been the basis for a broader memoir of more interest.

Review by S A Boyce

Title: Doumar and the Doctor
Author: Neville de Villiers
Publisher: Neville de Villiers in association with Wild Side Publishing
ISBN: 978-0-473-407674
RRP: $29.99
Available: ask at Paper Plus and independent bookshops

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