Kids into books: Night Race to Kawau

Author: Tessa Duder

Publisher: Puffin Books, $12.95

Age Group: 8-12 years


The old wooden stairs leading up to Sam's bedroom creaked as her father came bounding up two at a time.

Sam was just awake, but she registered some haste in
her father's step.

This wasn't Dad with the early morning cup of tea he sometimes brought up to her; this was Dad with a message, Dad perhaps wanting a swim and a jog before breakfast.

On this particular Friday morning in February, it was Dad with a job. He shook her shoulder with more urgency than usual.

"Sam, sorry to wake you a bit early. Can you do something for me? Something that's a secret between you and me? I don't want Mum to know."

"Depends on what it is," muttered Sam, her eyes still closed. Like her mother, Sam wasn't good at waking up.

She liked to lie in bed for a few minutes, listening to the insistent squawkings of the big black-backed gulls wheeling above the beach at the end of the road.