Category: Young Adult

The Grimmelings–book review

The Grimmelings, by Rachel King

Undersong: the sounds of a landscape

Chapters in The Grimmelings begin with a curious word or two, just to set the scene. ‘Undersong‘, one of the words to introduce Chapter Four, describes the background noise we live with, all the time. Can you hear it? I’ve got traffic drone at the moment. I’d rather the undersong of the lake, which I’ll call ‘Flitsplish’, as I have a bit of the Scottish in me. Rachel King’s book itself has an undersong: it’s the rhythm and poetry of the best children’s stories. I was mesmerised from the first line.

The same evening Josh Underhill went missing, the black horse appeared on the hill above the house.

Classic.

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The Summer Book – book review

The Summer book, by Tove Jansson

My friend Anne from Sweden has arrived. Last time she came to stay she brought Moomin coffee mugs. Her husband sent me an Atlas of Remote Islands and put a gnome in the garden (the gnome disappeared, but there’s been no postcard). This time Anne brought The Summer Book. Gifts tell you a lot about the people who give them. I love the Swedes.

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The Lighthouse – book review

The Lighthouse, by Christopher Parker

A book that seems well promoted in social media at the moment, The Lighthouse offers good engagement to keep the pages turning. It did have more of a Young Adult feeling than a grown-up read for me, with spooky but gentle ghosts, a sad but not gruesome mystery, young protagonists and a (pretty chaste) doe-eyed romance.

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Iris and Me – book review

Iris and Me, by Philippa Werry

This is a terrific story about a tenacious woman who, in the 1930s, leaves New Zealand with no support and very little cash and reports on a war in China. It’s intelligent young adult fiction (though I don’t qualify as either and I loved it). Despite speaking no Chinese language, having no official capacity, being slightly lame and needing a walking stick, Iris gets right to the front-line and writes on the conditions she finds there. This is Iris Wilkinson, pen name Robin Hyde, who was a New Zealand poet, journalist and novelist. I knew her from her books; I read The Godwits Fly recently, but I had no idea she was such an audacious traveller as well.

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Violet Black–book review

Violet Black, by Eileen Merriman

This is Merriman doing what she does so well, pacy adventure writing for young adults. Violet Black is a story that begins in the near future of Auckland with two late teens – Violet and Ethan – hospitalised with M-fever, a measles derivative that makes Covid seem like a runny nose. This virus targets teenagers. Ten percent of those infected with M-fever will develop encephalitis. Ninety five percent of those with encephalitis will die. Wow. Kids, this is fiction, OK? Ignore the fact that it is written by a doctor who we generally trust to tell us the truth about medical matters and that the whole scenario sounds pretty convincing at the beginning. If you feel your stress levels going up while reading, take several deep breaths. This nightmarish stuff–pandemics, sinister government organisations, anti-vax terrorism–is all imaginary.

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The Tomo—book review

The Tomo, by Mary-anne Scott

Another great adventure story from Hawke’s Bay writer, Mary-anne Scott, who has cornered the shelves in my house for books for boys. Again, she nails it, on-point for pace, topic and characters. The Tomo, hot off the press and in good time for Christmas, is aimed at boys who can read for themselves (8-14 ish) and fancy themselves heros of the great outdoors (at least in their imaginations). Oh, and you have to love dogs to understand this book. I mean, how can you possibly relate to a boy who risks his life for a dog otherwise?

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Shackleton’s Endurance — book review

Shackleton’s Endurance, an Antarctic survival story, by Joanna Grochowicz

Complained about the cold lately? Snowflake! Shackleton’s Endurance will knock that out of you. Comparatively, you have never been cold.

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State Highway one — book review

State Highway One by Sam Coley

State Highway One is a disturbing read. Gripping, though. As fast paced as the car roaring down those familiar NZ roads at death defying speed with the deranged, drunk, sleepless boy at the wheel and his harpy twin sister lighting his cigarettes and talking in his ear. He loses her occasionally but she always finds him again. Weird, that.

They’re both selfish, unlikable kids. They’re made that way by their selfish, unlikable parents who are Auckland mega-celebs: rich movie moguls who trot the globe and abandon their kids in the swanky party pad to finish their private schooling free-range. Do people like this really exist? Feels very LA, but perhaps Auckland is heading that way and growing a generation of rich, entitled brats.

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A Trio of Sophies & The Silence of Snow – book reviews

Two books by Eileen Merriman

Get hooked onto Eileen Merriman for some fast, compulsive reading. These are page turners, books for which you need a “Do Not Disturb” sign on your door. Believe me, Merriman will disturb you enough. Don’t worry about the categorisation, read the YA books, too.

I first dipped into Merriman’s writing with A Trio of Sophies. Young adults must be into pretty dark stuff these days. The main character, Sophie, is a school girl with two other Sophies in her group, but there’s nothing Sweet Valley High about them. Plenty of rocks below those schoolgirl smiles. The main theme is a teacher/pupil power imbalance, a subject that probably could use talking around before giving this to your teenage daughter.

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The Telegram – book review

The Telegram by Philippa Werry

I love a good YA fiction that goes deep, and The Telegram by Philippa Werry certainly delivers. A young reader will enjoy the story of Beatrice cycling around her small kiwi town on her bike, changing from a schoolgirl to a young woman with the harrowing responsibility of delivering telegrams during the first world war. She makes and loses friends, delivers news of celebration and (more often) tragedy to families, writes letters as she waits for the boy next door to return from the front, and celebrates the war’s end just as the ‘flu rolls into town.  Continue reading “The Telegram – book review”