Short takes: Kids' books

Reviewed by MARGIE THOMSON

Tessa Duder: Storylines: The Anthology

I'm wary of the anthology format for children's writing, perhaps because it's so difficult to build allegiance to a book that keeps changing, perhaps because in my experience children don't warm to them, and perhaps because the editors' efforts to sustain a certain tone throughout is too obvious.

That said, however, this is a good one, and I particularly enjoyed the selection of non-fiction writing in it.

You'll find Trish Gribben's account of Michael Smither painting a mural in her stairwell and Betty Gilderdale's re-telling of the adventures of the scow Moa, and its capturing by "sea devil" Count von Luckner.

I loved Ron Bacon's recounting of his experience with a water tank full of rotten huhu beetles and there's some other lovely stuff, too - check out Dorothy Butler's wonderful poem "Words", for instance.

(Scholastic, $24.95)

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Phillippa King: Jive's Pipi Diggers

This cheerful story is about a much-loved boy who, with his mother, discovers what his toes are really for.

It's happy from start to finish, and the writing evokes this iconic "Kiwi" experience: "Sssskaaaaa" go the pipis on the barbie, and they smelled so good that "Jive's mouth felt like the tide had come in".

Illustrated by Gabriella Klepatski
(Puffin, $16.95)

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Philippa Werry and Alice Bell: The Lost Watch


A short, race-through story that will gladden the hearts of small boys, as they realise they're not the only ones with a record of losing things.

Here, Henry accidentally borrows his father's watch, and then leaves it at school over the weekend. His family is in an uproar, and Henry finds that one lie leads rapidly to more. For 7- to 8-year-olds, although my 9-year-old read it at one sitting, laughing knowingly and judging it "cool".

(Scholastic, $13.99)

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Jan Mark: Something in the air


Mark, a two-time winner of Britain's prestigious Carnegie Medal, packs a mind-expanding amount of information into her latest novel.

It's set in England around 1920, and concerns a family struggling in the aftermath of the Great War.

Peggy's father was killed at Passchendaele, and the family is living in reduced circumstances. Mark brings alive this era on the brink of change: radio is about to burst upon the world, and women's lives (some of them, anyway) are already expanding into greater levels of personal freedom.

There's a mystery, too: what's the origin of the Morse code that 14-year-old Peggy is hearing inside her head? Science-fiction or just science? Good, solid storytelling.

(Doubleday, $36.95)

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Anna Mackenzie: High Tide

This is great: a thriller whose tension builds to a genuinely unexpected (and shocking) climax, involving a group of teenagers whose characterisations are believable and recognisable without losing their individual interest.

Eight teenagers set out for a week's tramping with a trusted teacher. Something goes horribly wrong - as it often does in New Zealand's dark bush and wild coastline - and the dominos start tumbling.

Mackenzie's characters show extraordinary toughness, determination, loyalty and responsibility, yet they're quite convincing, made human by their blistered feet, their vulnerability, their sheer exhaustion and stubbornness. Mackenzie has a terrific feeling for dramatic pace, as well as for the landscape (both emotional and physical) that her beleaguered teens are stumbling through. Scholastic recommends this book for children 12 and up, although I wonder whether the heart-stopping description of burgeoning sexual attraction might be more comfortably handled by kids a year or two older than that.


(Scholastic, $15.95)

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