Blog Archives

Entertaining book for youngsters

27/6/2019

Old Russian Jack
by Tania Atkinson
illustrated by Viv Walker

My first thought was ‘what an intriguing title for a child’s picture book’. With my interest piqued I was ready to find out what was in Old Russian Jack’s mysterious gigantic sack.
    The cover art is rustic, and bold, and the ‘sack,’ or swag as some know it, is clearly what the story is going to be about.
    The book is beautifully presented, the layout commendable, the artwork superb with no unnecessary background intrusion; whatever is there is rural New Zealand. And there is such a genuine gentleness about Old Russian Jack’s face that he can only draw children to him in a kindly grandfatherly way.
    Inside, the illustrations are larger than life – vivid and vital – as is the story line.
There are animals around Old Russian Jack that we come to realise are his devoted companions as he traipses from farm to farm looking for work, food and a warm place to sleep: Doggie Dan, Kitty Cat, Mattie Mouse and Maggie Pie.
    There are plenty of lines for the children to join in too.
    So the story progresses and we have the various animals’ ideas about just what might be in that mysterious gigantic swag sack, and each individual animal’s idea is depicted in the artwork. Expectation and then disappointment for each.
    So just what is in Russian Jack’s mysterious gigantic swag sack? Read this entertaining book with your youngsters and find out.
   This story is based on the true character of the famous swagman, Russian Jack from Latvia, who spent 56 years in New Zealand trudging across and around the North Island in search of farm work to provide him with food and accommodation. He died in Greytown at the age of 90.

Review by Susan Tarr

Title: Old Russian Jack
Author: Tania Atkinson, illustrator: Viv Walker
Publisher: Swirld Books
ISBN: 978-0-473-46971-9
RRP: $22.00
Available: Wheelers Books Online. Aratoi Museum of Art and History, Paper Plus and Hedleys bookshop, Masterton. Cobblestones Museum and Kotare Gallery, Greytown. Waiart Gallery 23, Heart of Arts Gallery, Take Note Bookshop, Almos Bookshop, Carterton. Te Kairanga Wines Vineyard, Pain and Kershaws, Martinborough. LOCO Bookshop & Cafe, Featherston. Bruce McKenzie Books, Palmerston North. Whanganui Museum retail store, Paige’s Bookshop, Whanganui. Paper Plus in Feilding, Levin, Paraparaumu, Upper Hutt. The Bookshelf, Waikanae. The Children’s Bookshop Kilbirnie, Unity Bookshop, Victoria University Bookshop, Wellington.

Comments

Fast-paced, highly entertaining tale

22/6/2019

Comments

Tenby’s Coda
by Richard Eaton

The front cover describes this novel as ‘a tale of romance, travel and intrigue’. It delivers very satisfactorily on all three counts, and it also incorporates the classic trappings of a fast-paced international thriller – expensive cars, luxury yachts, five-star hotels – as well as  trendy locations such as Cannes, a Swiss ski-resort, London’s West-End, the Greek Islands, cosmopolitan Ottawa; and, rather less foreseeably, a brief sojourn to Lightning Ridge in backblocks New South Wales.
But the book is not exclusively plot-driven, as the author has taken care to make both of the main protagonists, male and female, believable and, by and large, likeable. They have vulnerabilities and peccadilloes and back-histories that help the reader to sympathise and relate. They succumb willingly enough to the temptations of hedonism, but they also show a degree or two of compassion and altruism. They grow and they learn.
  Some of the descriptions of place and action (skiing and aviation, for instance) are quite technical, but this is likely to add to the enjoyment for aficionados, and they didn’t leave this abysmally ignorant reviewer with the sense that he was being patronised.
  Apart from the tension of the romantic relationship (will-he won’t he, will-she won’t she – perhaps a little overwrought at times), the most significant push behind the need to turn the pages is the mysterious Mr Tenby of the title, and his motives.
  Tenby is an extraordinarily wealthy American who, by fortuitous accident, meets up with Bill Delahunt, the jobless ex-British army officer who is the major male protagonist, and offers him the chance to spend large sums of money on just about anything that takes his fancy. There are conditions and warnings attached, of course, but to go into any greater detail would be to spoil things.  Sufficient to say that the denouement involving Delahunt, his love interest Stephanie, and Mr Joseph Phineas Tenby is very satisfying if not entirely unpredictable. It also leaves the reader room to ponder on what could happen next.
This is a generally fast-paced and highly entertaining tale. Just occasionally it becomes a little repetitive (the same incident, and not necessarily one that is essential to the plot, is sometimes described more than once as the focus shifts from one protagonist to another), and in this regard it could have done with tightening. But although it is longer than it need have been, it is a well-presented book, and a well-written one; a pretty near perfect choice for those who are looking for a relaxing and enjoyable escape from the humdrum of everyday life.

Review by Tony Chapelle

Title: Tenby’s Coda
Author: Richard Eaton
Publisher: Richard Eaton
ISBN: 978-0-473-47424-9
RRP: $28
Available: Kindle; Kobo. In print form from Hawkes Bay libraries, Beattie & Forbes book shop in Ahuriri, Wardini’s book shops in Napier and Havelock North, Carson’s book shop in Thames.

Comments

Stories of a legendary figure

17/6/2019

Comments

The Hero from Nithdale Station
by Dick Tripp

It was entirely appropriate that this book came to me around Anzac Day, for much of the ambience around a commemoration that the Foreword claims ‘… threatens to evaporate away as the memory of its characters fades …’ is present in this book. The dwindling numbers of veterans left to us is one such threat, but the burgeoning numbers of young people turning out for commemoration services in Oceania, Great Britain and Turkey is a counterbalancing guarantee that ‘We will remember them.’
This can only be underlined by the life stories of such legendary figures as Major Charles WH Tripp, a man who might have sprung, fully-formed, from the pages of ‘The Boys’ Own Paper’. Eccentric beyond doubt in the matter of his outstanding dedication to physical fitness, Tripp was the sort of person on whom empires were and are founded. It emerges as no surprise that his favourite poet was Kipling, the ‘poet of Empire’ and Tripp can readily be imagined on the Northwest Frontier; as a tea-planter in Assam or as a ‘Mountie’ in the Canadian wilderness. That Fate made him a member of the South Island squirearchy was the good fortune of New Zealand, the United States and Great Britain, all of which honoured him for his Pacific War service with the Fiji Guerrillas.
This formation, as with the British Fourteenth Army in Burma, has been little-appreciated in the pantheon of World War Two stories, but its contribution to the Pacific War in terms of scouting, reconnaissance, guiding and information-gathering was both immense and recognised as such by those American generals who led armies of farmhands and city-boys to war there.
Charles Tripp took a leading part in the activities of this unit, whether training or combat, and led it from the front in a totally ‘follow-me’ manner that redefined the very concept of leadership. Some way older than the men he led, he was also fitter, stronger and tougher, mentally as well as physically. Always up-front and in the thick of things, his immense nerve and courage lent him a charmed life which was never better exemplified than when he took a bullet from a Japanese rifle in the chest at short range only to be saved by the contents of his pocket, which included a notebook and cigarette-lighter that cushioned the impact to the point where the major injury done was only to his uniform. How much stranger than fiction is truth?
His variety of experiences included walking around and through Japanese encampments by night cutting telephone wires: navigating patrols through jungle so dense that the Japanese eschewed it; leading men in the ferocity of hand-to-hand combat and, unbelievably, successfully charging a Japanese bunker while mounted on a bulldozer with the blade down to deflect bullets. ‘Boys’ Own’ stuff indeed, but these and similar exploits while deployed in contact with the enemy on an almost daily basis earned him the veneration of New Zealanders, Americans and Fijians alike and the number and quality of his decorations bear witness to that.
His post-war activities reveal the same emphasis upon community, empathy, care for others and leadership that had marked his contribution to the armed forces and which stamp Tripp as one born to lead. That same ethos of service above self is echoed in the award of a Queen’s Service Medal to Tripp’s wife, Myra, for the sort of community service that was the breath and staff of life for this outstanding family.
Unfortunately, the structure of this compelling book is less remarkable than the life stories of its subject. While any lack of balance is excused by the author’s decision to write a work of hagiography, certain things remain requirements nonetheless.
In the first place, the decision to structure the book as a collection of anecdotes rather than a biography has had a profound effect upon its readability. Paramount here is an absence of detail; for example Tripp’s date of birth becomes apparent only in his obituary; we are not told when he began at Cambridge University despite his rowing prowess being a highlight; the earliest links between the Pinckney and Tripp families are shrouded in mystery, and, perhaps most central to the story of an outstanding young man with little work history making his way in the world on the eve of the Depression, readers are left to wonder how he manages to finance the purchase of a 3500 acre farm, stock it handsomely and employ workers.
Secondly, some of the book’s content as ‘what everyone knows’ stamps it as being for local, rather than national, consumption. Prominent in this is the absence of a map showing the location of places featuring repeatedly in the story, notably Orari Gorge, and Glenaray Station, and this reviewer was forced to resort to the ‘AA Road Atlas’ and even then with only limited success in the mystery of Glenaray Station.
None of this is covered in a work of anecdote, and any ‘Life and Times of …’ type of memoir surely requires them.
Third, the work suffers from failings in proof-reading. ‘Earnest Shackelton’; ‘Galashielsds’ and ‘Dumfriedshire’ are all only a Google-search away, and there is thus little excuse for these infelicities.
However, the story of Major Charles WH Tripp, lovingly and enticingly told by his son, goes beyond fascinating and into the riveting. If ever there was a need to accord a great New Zealander a full and proper biography, it is here.

Review by MJ Burr

Title: The Hero from Nithdale Station
Author: Dick Tripp
Publisher: Wild Side Publishing
ISBN: 9780473462291
RRP: $24.99
Available: bookshops

Comments

Exemplary selection of contemporary essays

12/6/2019

Comments

Life on Volcanoes: Contemporary Essays
by Tulia Thompson, Tze Ming Mok, Courtenay Sina Meredith, Ruth Larsen,
Tui Gordon. Edited by Janet McAllister

Five gifted writers, educated in and living in Auckland, combine to give us an exemplary selection of contemporary essays, and in a beautifully designed book.
Firstly to the aesthetics of the book, white hardcover, with an embossed title in black. The cover also has what can be described as a psychedelic stain, and this appears in different colours on each essay’s title page, as well as in the gutter of every verso page. There is also a motif of five hills, or mountains, two of which are pointed peaks.
So the content can flow like a rolling hill, or reach a peak of poignancy, or just personal discomfit. The editor states that the authors have chosen subjects that are usually discussed in private. Maybe; or only discussed amongst groups of women in Auckland cafes.
Ruth Larsen traverses the complexity of her two children’s extra-curricular activity, or the “perils of parental FOMO,” whatever that is. Courtney Sina Meredith details her 20 years of excruciating pain with endometriosis, and finally getting to the other side. Tui Gordon explores the issue of female sexuality, within a same sex relationship, against the background of the latest feminist ‘wave’, and adjusting to her partner’s history of abuse. Tulia Thompson starts from that point, and, despite her tertiary education, relates her life of relative poverty and economic insecurity, having to continually provide personal information to the authorities.
But the book begins with Tze Ming Mok’s essay on her people, those that can’t discuss anything in public, whether that be personal or political views. She addresses a male friend who may alive, dead, or being sequestered in a re-education camp for Uighurs. Mok’s essay is a tour de force that traverses ethnic identity, Chinese politics and society, family history and migration. At once she is a Han coloniser within a Chinese context, and an exile, due to her grandfather’s defection. Mok indicates how categories of complicity and dissent are not separate when surviving a repressive regime; and how the psychological effects of State surveillance can reach across borders and generations, even affecting ‘white’ political scientists in a nominally liberal democratic country like New Zealand, such as Professor Ann-Marie Brady.
Tze Ming Mok writes similes and metaphors beautifully and straight to the point. She refers to the surveillance activity as receiving ‘The Knock’, which can come at any time. As a Han Chinese she describes herself as an ‘ant’, and part of the army whether she likes it or not. Where once her grandfather was an apparatchik with a clipboard, she also finds herself adopting the practice of “tut-tutting with a clipboard,” when admonishing the racists amongst us, or the other ‘white-adjacent’ migrants. At the end she addresses her friend: “all I can do is lock you in my mind into your little house on the edge of the desert…fixed in time under luminous vines, encircled by protective sands…maybe one days the sands will shift again…and everything we built and hid for each other will be revealed.” So ends something of a masterpiece, marred only by the odd expletive, and lack of explanation of terms like merdeka (a Malaysian word).
So this book reflects the views of five feminists living around the dormant volcanoes of Auckland. Will it get the recognition it deserves beyond the Bombay Hills?

Review by S A Boyce

Title: Life on Volcanoes Contemporary Essays
Author: Tulia Thompson, Tze Ming Mok, Courtenay Sina Meredith, Ruth Larsen, Tui Gordon
Publisher: Beatnik
ISBN: 9780994138392
RRP: $25
Available: www.beatnikshop.co

Comments

Current issues woven into novel

7/6/2019

Comments

Novel
by Vaughan Rapatahana

I very much enjoyed the story told here. Maybe I should not limit the review to a singular story since the style of the “Novel” is that of weaving a number of, at first, seemingly unrelated storylines together to carry the tale along.
It is fair to say that this story involves a majority of the issues facing the world today but without being opinionated or preachy. For example, the struggle for Superpower dominance, the collusion required to achieve it and the ongoing struggle for justice in various colonies around the world. Including Aotearoa.
The effectiveness of the modern-day hacker to destabilize the power hungry, and even the exploitation of the poor and immigrant workers we see so much of today play important parts in the whole. All extremely current and complicated topics and, in hindsight, one would wonder how they could all be covered in one novel but this “Novel” does so with good effect.
The tale is delivered in a very modern style, which I enjoyed, but I did find the smatterings of more romantic imagery to be distracting and ill-befitting of what is otherwise a good tale well told. The episodic style should provide the opportunity for the writer to create some degree of suspense as we exit a chapter and, for me, that opportunity was mostly missed. I noticed this more towards the end of the book where the tension could have been built more effectively in this way.
Ruby’s only real desire is to visit her adult children but her mysterious partner Dr Cross is holding her back. Norton is on the run from a crime he did not commit, his lawyer and old army buddy Monaghan has disappeared while Godfrey Woo is trying to avoid the Triad hitmen. This plot has a geographical spread from Aotearoa to Hong Kong, the Philippines to Guam and is effectively brought together through the eyes of the main characters. Throw in a handful of tech savvy student hackers uncovering and leaking evidence of high level corruption and collusion in Asia, an uprising of Maori activists hiding away in the bush of Ruatahuna in the Urewera and the ineptitude of some “intelligence” operatives who are trying to put a lid on the whole thing, and the result is “Novel”.
“Novel” gives us a glimpse of what our future might look like either leading up to the Apocalypse or perhaps pulling us back from the brink. We are not taken far enough to confirm which, but there may be some hope.

Review by George Hollinsworth

Title: Novel
Author: Vaughan Rapatahana
Publisher: Rangitawa Publishing
ISBN: 780995104662
RRP: $38 + postage
Available: Print from Rangitawa Publishing, Amazon, Wheelers Book Club (online) and by request from any good book shop. Ebook for Kindle from Amazon.

Comments

Imaginative fantasy adventure

1/6/2019

Comments

Elastic Island Adventures: Rainbow Cove
by Karen McMillan

Rainbow Cove is the third destination in this wildly imaginative fantasy adventure series.
Kiri, Jed, and twins Emma, and Ethan, are now seasoned Elastic Island travellers. Children are likely to identify themselves with one or more of the main characters’ diverse personalities or with their hobbies as their interests vary from sports, books, music and technology.
Once they arrive on the island it doesn’t take our four adventurers long to figure out there’s something amiss at Rainbow Cove. Together with new friends they meet along their journey they investigate the latest mystery.
The vibrant illustrations on the cover are a drawcard for catching a young reader’s attention. Robustly constructed, this is a book that will cope with multiple handlings. The interior design is well laid out with a large font and a clean style that will appeal to independent readers.
Rainbow Cove is my favourite so far in this series as the storyline is more playful than in the first book. I particularly enjoyed experiencing Rainbow Cove filtered through the fun perspective of Blong the Cat – a most delightful character.
Although part of a series this can be read as standalone adventure and the seeds for Book Four have been firmly planted within Rainbow Cove.

Review by WJ Scott
Award-winning children’s author

Title: Elastic Island Adventures: Rainbow Cove
Author: Karen McMillan
Publisher: Duckling Publishing
ISBN:9780473466596
RRP: $19.99
Available: bookshops

Comments

Entertaining book for youngsters

Fast-paced, highly entertaining tale

Stories of a legendary figure

Exemplary selection of contemporary essays

Current issues woven into novel

Imaginative fantasy adventure

FlaxFlower Reviews

Archives

Categories