Kids into books: Shadrach Girl

Author: Joy Cowley

Illustrator: Dexter Fry

Publisher: Puffin Books $15.95

Age Group: 9-12 years


Yeah, he thought, cute as in cute-little, not cute-big. Never cute-big. That was the trouble with being the youngest. When Mikey and Eden were ten, no one talked about them as though they had just been potty trained. No way! Sky was convinced that if you were youngest in the family you stayed cute-little all your life.

Clang. clang! His sister was folding the ironing board and now talking about the sports day at Hopai in January. They would go, of course. They always went. Races, tug-of-war, a gumboot throwing contest, boats and cars, picnics, grandparents sitting in folding chairs, little kids walking wide in diapers, cameras, sun block, cans of beer, the smoke from barbecues drifting up through macrocarpa branches. Everyone in the Sounds went to Hopai the first Saturday in January.