Joy Cowley’s latest novel, The Bakehouse, is out this month from Gecko Press. It’s a brilliant, multi-layered novel about secrets, lies and how the consequences of one boy’s actions ripple throughout his family. You can read my review here on the blog.
Thanks to everyone who entered. The winner is Benedict.
Elizabeth Pulford is one of our great Kiwi authors. She has written books for all ages, from picture books to novels for children, young adults and adults. Elizabeth has two new books that have just been released, a picture book called Finding Monkey Moon and the first book in her fantastic new Bloodtree Chronicles series, Sanspell. You can read my review of Bloodtree Chronicles: Sanspell here on the blog.
I had a few questions about the Bloodtree Chronicles and Elizabeth has very kindly answered them for me. Read on to find out more about Elizabeth’s new series and her favourite story worlds.
It was more a case of resistance in the beginning. I was having time away from writing in the garden when into my head slipped the first line of Sanspell. I told it to go away and that I wasn’t interested. Then an hour or so later the same line, word for word, arrived. I ignored it. Later than evening it made another appearance so I wrote it down, not really interested. Two days later I found the piece of paper and typed it into the computer. As soon as I did that my curiosity was stirred and I started to ask questions, eg ‘whose mother’s dress was it?’ It went on from there until the idea caught me completely and wouldn’t let me go.
Definitely the Robin Hood stories. I would love to be in his gang and living in Sherwood Forest.
Zezmena. I always think villains are so interesting. What makes them behave the way they do? What makes them tick? Trying to find the one redeeming quality that they keep hidden beneath all their evil deeds.
The Magic Faraway Tree world created by Enid Blyton. Growing up there was an old apple tree in our garden. I kept wishing for this to be the same as the Faraway Tree and that Moonface would appear. Sadly it never happened!
The Bragonsthyme’s story is frozen. To be a proper fairy story it needs to have a happy ending, otherwise it cannot help the Bloodtree to heal. It is up to Abigail / Spindale (with help from Flint and Bramble) to find its ending.
In Thatchthorpe the King of Silvering Kingdom dies. Rackenard sees his chance to rule, thereby putting the Bloodtree at a greater risk than it has ever been. The only way to stop this happening is finding the two parts of the magical code, which will reveal to the people of the kingdom who is the true king.
Whistling in the Dark by Shirley Hughes
Liverpool, 1940: thirteen-year-old Joan’s home is under threat from the Nazi’s terrifying nightly air-raids. It is not an easy time to be a teenager, especially with the sweet rationing, strict curfews and blackouts. Joan and best friend Doreen love going to the cinema until the bombings intensify and then even that becomes too dangerous, especially when an army deserter is found lurking near their home. Who is he and why does he think Joan can help him? As the Blitz worsens, Joan and her friends make a discovery that will tear the whole community apart…
The Fortelling of Georgie Spider (Book 3 of The Tribe) by Ambelin Kwaymullina
The third and final book in the thrilling eco-dystopian series The Tribe.
A storm was stretching out across futures to swallow everything in nothing, and it was growing larger, which meant it was getting nearer… Georgie Spider has foretold the end of the world, and the only one who can stop it is Ashala Wolf. But Georgie has also foreseen Ashala’s death. As the world shifts around the Tribe, Ashala fights to protect those she loves from old enemies and new threats.
And Georgie fights to save Ashala. Georgie Spider can see the future. But can she change it?
Remix by Non Pratt
From the author of Trouble comes a novel about boys, bands and best mates. Kaz is still reeling from being dumped by the
love of her life… Ruby is bored of hearing about it. Time to change the record.
Three days. Two best mates. One music festival. Zero chance of everything working out.
The Bad Guys: Episode 1 by Aaron Blabey
They sound like the Bad Guys, they look like the Bad Guys . . . and they even smell like the Bad Guys. But Mr Wolf, Mr Piranha, Mr Snake and Mr Shark are about to change all of that! Mr Wolf has a daring plan for the Bad Guys’ first good mission. The gang are going to break 200 dogs out of the Maximum Security City Dog Pound. Will Operation Dog Pound go smoothly? Will the Bad
Guys become the Good Guys? And will Mr Snake please spit out Mr Piranha?
Dragon Knight: Witch by Kyle Mewburn and Donovan Bixley (Book 3)
A witch’s curse and brussel sprouts are bad enough. But will Percy’s revenge be the end for Merek? From the creators of Dinosaur Rescue comes an outrageous and revoltingly funny medieval adventure series that’ll set you on fire!
Stan the Van Man by Emma Vere-Jones and illustrated by Philip Webb
Sometimes, being helpful is not enough . . .
When the mail van driver walks out, Miss Mickle from the Post Office store is left in a right pickle. Enter Stan, a helpful chap who offers to drive the delivery van. Unfortunately Miss Mickle doesn’t give him the chance to explain that he actually can’t read … and parcel pandemonium ensues! When the angry recipients storm the Post Office and find out the reason for the misdeliveries, they decide to band together to help Stan learn to read.
I absolutely love Derek Landy’s Skulduggery Pleasant series! It’s one of the few series that I’ve read every single book of and dropped everything to read the new book when it was released. Derek Landy has been in the world of Skulduggery Pleasant for so long that it will be really interesting to read a completely different story from him with new characters. Demon Road is this new story. I can’t wait to delve into this new world and see where Derek takes us next!
Check out the blurb and the cover for Demon Road below.
Killer cars, vampires, undead serial killers: they’re all here. And the demons? Well, that’s where Amber comes in … Sixteen years old, smart and spirited, she’s just a normal American teenager until the lies are torn away and the demons reveal themselves. Forced to go on the run, she hurtles from one threat to another, revealing a tapestry of terror woven into the very fabric of her life. Her only chance rests with her fellow travellers, who are not at all what they appear to be …
Demon Road is released in New Zealand by HarperCollins NZ on 1 September. Keep an eye out on the blog for an awesome competition coming soon for your chance to win an advance copy of Demon Road.
Joy Cowley is a New Zealand legend. Children grow up reading her books, from the very first school readers, through to school journals, picture books and on in to novels for children and young adults. She has been writing for many years and that experience truly shows in the depth and quality of her writing. In the last couple of years the wonderful Gecko Press have been publishing Joy Cowley’s novels for older readers. Her first with Gecko Press, Dunger, went on to win the Junior Fiction category at the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults in 2014. Then came the haunting, Speed of Light. Joy Cowley’s latest novel from Gecko Press, The Bakehouse, takes readers back to Wellington during the Second World War.
Someone should know what happened that winter day.
Bert wants nothing more than be old enough to fight in the war—to handle weapons, defend his country, and have a life filled with adventure. Little does he know that the secrets and danger of war don’t always stay at the front line, and that one boy’s actions can change everything.
The Bakehouse is Joy Cowley at her best. It’s a brilliant, multi-layered novel about secrets, lies and how the consequences of one boy’s actions ripple throughout his family. Joy Cowley shows readers what life was like in New Zealand in 1943, with the threat of Japanese invasion and many of the men off at war.
We meet Bert as an old man in a nursing home, who recalls the story of the Geronimo Bakehouse for his grandson. There is something that Bert needs to get off his chest, something to do with the Bakehouse, and as the story progresses you wonder what the big secret is that Bert has been keeping for seventy-odd years. It is Bert who first ventures in to the Bakehouse and claims it as the family’s bomb shelter. He cleans and tidies it ready for his family, and one day decides to show his sisters. It is on this day that they discover a soldier hiding in the Bakehouse. The soldier, Donald, has escaped from the army and is hiding in fear of being captured and court marshalled. Bert and his sisters keep Donald as their secret and look after him, bringing him food and clothing. Life gets complicated for the children, but little do they know what is to come and how much their lives will change in one moment. You know that something bad is going to happen but I wasn’t sure how it was going to pan out.
The way that Joy tells the story reminds me of John Boyne’s The Boy in Striped Pyjamas. Like Bruno in that story, Bert is a naive boy who doesn’t quite understand what is going on around him. There are several incidents in the book where, as an adult, you know what is being implied but Bert has no idea. Bert can’t understand why his sister Betty wants to go and visit Donald so much, especially without her brother or sister. When Bert’s Auntie Vi takes him and his sister to the movies, but then ends up meeting her friend and a couple of soldiers, disappearing with them, we know what is implied but Bert is confused. It is very good storytelling.
Gecko Press should be applauded for once again producing a wonderful little package that matches the other Joy Cowley books that they have published.
The Bakehouse is a must-read book from a New Zealand legend.
Recommended for 9+
Desna Wallace lived through the Canterbury Earthquakes, and it is no surprise that children from all over NZ voted her book Canterbury Quake, as one of their finalists in the Children’s Choice list. The book is part of Scholastic NZ’s ‘My New Zealand Story’ list, a series of fiction titles featuring notable NZ events. Desna Wallace is a school librarian in Christchurch who is passionate about children’s books. She has had a number of stories published in the School Journal, but Canterbury Quake is her first published novel. We wanted to know how it all came about.
A friend kept telling me that I needed to write about Christchurch’s devastating earthquakes. At first I kept saying no but eventually one day while driving home from work, the character of Maddy popped into my head and by the time I got home, her whole family were in there too. It was a bit crowded in there so I just began writing and kept on writing. I felt that Maddy’s story would be best told in diary format so that readers could experience the daily life of a family living through a national disaster. Even though I lived through the earthquakes and life inside a broken city, I still had to do a heap of research to make sure everything was accurate. It needed to be exactly right as it is the story of one of New Zealand’s worst ever disasters. And I agree that it was a story that needed to be told and I feel so privileged that my Maddy, was the one to do the telling. I am so glad my friend had faith in me to give it a go.
I was incredibly lucky with my book being published. I had written stories, poems and plays for the School Journal and even had a Ready-to-Read book published but in terms of writing a novel I was completely inexperienced. I knew how it felt to be in the quakes, what it felt like to be scared and because I worked with children, I knew how they felt too so I guess my story was very real. I think this is why it was accepted; I was writing from true experience.
When it was accepted, everything happened very quickly which was a bit scary as I didn’t really know what I should be doing. I had deadlines to keep to and I was working my day jobs too, so there was a bit of pressure to do everything. I had kept my writing a secret until I knew it was going to be published, so that was a bit hard too. Then when it was accepted, I wanted to tell the whole world!
This was the easiest thing to do. I knew I wanted a diary format and as I worked very closely with a group of ten and 11 year olds, I knew this was the group I wanted to write for. It was the age group of children I felt would understand Maddy best. Maddy was very real to me and I hoped that she would be real to children in this age group. Scholastic’s My New Zealand story format is very clear so I just followed their advice.
I dedicated the book to my son, Calvin. After a divorce I raised him on my own from just a baby so it has always been just the two of us. He is my best friend and the most important person in my life, and I felt so proud to dedicate my book to him.
I would read any of the ‘My New Zealand Story’ books. There are so many important events in New Zealand’s history and reading the diaries is such a cool way to get to know about our past.
I love scrapbooking, and gardening. Both of these hobbies are relaxing and rewarding. I love the finished page with photos and embellishments. However, I really don’t like mowing my lawns. In fact I hate it! But I do like the way the lawns look after a cut and I love the smell of the grass after the lawn has been mowed. I have two cats and I love spending time with them in the garden. One of my cats (who is actually Dusty in my novel) loves climbing all over my keyboard when I type and in fact is doing it right now which makes typing very hard. It is a wonder I get anything finished.
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Desna was the Christchurch Library Kids’ blogs star author in February 2014: https://christchurchkids.wordpress.com/2014/02/03/february-star-author-desna-wallace/ Scholastic NZ’s feature about Desna: http://www.scholastic.co.nz/publishing/author/pdfs/tileD.pdf
For a review of My New Zealand Story: Canterbury Quake, check out the Booksellers NZ blog here: https://booksellersnz.wordpress.com/2014/02/20/book-review-my-story-canterbury-quake-by-desna-wallace/
Friday’s feature was 1914: Riding into War, by Susan Brocker, both of whom were featured on Booknotes Unbound, www.booknotes-unbound.co.nz Tomorrow’s feature will be another junior fiction title, The Island of Lost Horses, by Stacy Gregg, which will be on Booksellers NZ’s blog here: https://booksellersnz.wordpress.com/.
Today I’m hosting an interview with the lovely Desna Wallace, author of My New Zealand Story: Canterbury Quake. Desna is a good friend of mine and I was super excited for her when her book was published, and even more so when it was chosen by kids around New Zealand as a 2015 Children’s Choice Award finalist! Canterbury Quake is a fantastic book that perfectly illustrates what it was like for the children who had to cope with the many earthquakes we had here in Canterbury.
Thanks to Booksellers New Zealand I have a copy of Canterbury Quake to give away. To get in the draw all you have to do is leave a comment telling me ‘What is your favourite book that immerses you in a time or place?’ It could be a fantasy story that takes you to another world or a historical story that transports you to another period of history.
Competition closes Monday 20 July (New Zealand only).
Watch the video to hear more from Morris Gleitzman about Soon, Felix’s story so far, and the unexpected reaction to the series in Germany.
Soon is out now in NZ from Penguin Random House
Yvonne Morrison’s book Little Red Riding Hood (Not Quite), illustrated by Donovan Bixley, has been voted for by kids all over New Zealand as a finalist in the Children’s Choice Picture Book category. Little Red is also on the judge’s finalist list. She and Donovan collaborated last year, on the Children’s Choice award-winning The Three Bears (Sort Of).
Yvonne is a zookeeper, swing dance instructor, former school teacher, and children’s book author of such bestsellers as A Kiwi Night Before Christmas, A Kiwi Jingle Bells, Down in the Forest and The Three Bears (Sort of).
I used to be a primary school teacher, and I was visiting an ex-colleague who asked me to read Three Bears (Sort Of) to her class and conduct a follow-on writing lesson for her staff to observe as professional development. I used Red Riding Hood as a model of how to alter a fairy tale, and then the children had a go at doing their own. When my publishers suggested a follow-up to Three Bears, it was natural to turn to Little Red, as I’d already had a head-start. Once you really start thinking about the original story, the ideas flow. Why DOESN’T Little Red notice the wolf isn’t Granny right away? And how DOES a wolf swallow a Granny whole?
Really, it was a breeze. I simply supplied the manuscript, my editors queried a few things (and rightly so), I tidied up some bits, and then it was good to go to Donovan Bixley for the hard part – illustrating! I think he faced some considerable challenges in this book – we had discussions about how gruesome the drawings could be… it’s not easy to convey swallowed grannies and slit-open wolves in a tasteful manner, but Donovan achieved it!
To be honest, I didn’t try all that hard. I tend to write books that amuse myself, and hope that by not talking down to children, they will pick up on whatever level of humour they are ready for. I also hope that the adults reading my books aloud are also amused by the stories, since they may be hearing and reading them frequently. Donovan helps in this by providing clever illustrations that work on all levels.
Incidentally, I also slipped in my own personal ethical philosophy by having the wolf end up at a wolf sanctuary. I’m always hoping that little things like that might lead to a teachable moment, or spark a classroom debate, and get kids thinking about such questions as the nature of good and evil – is a carnivorous wolf evil simply because he seeks to eat humans? I would like to think that both Little Red and Three Bears are encouraging questioning and skepticism in young people.
I haven’t this time. At this point, I have a book dedicated to each of the people I love, and now I’ve run out of people!
The first fractured fairy-tale I read is still my favourite. It’s The True Story of the Three Little Pigs! by Jon Scieszka. I also like anything quirky, like It’s a Book by Lane Smith, and of course my fellow finalist, I Am Not A Worm! by Scott Tulloch. I am pleased that publishers are becoming more open to non-traditional manuscripts and hope that this trend continues!
I can’t choose just one thing! Here’s four: dancing, because it keeps me fit, lets me listen to great music and brings me joy; travelling, because it teaches me about different cultures and gives me new experiences to draw on; helping animals, because animals think and feel just like we do but are unable to speak for themselves, so I choose to be their voice; and eating, because food is awesome!
I am about to embark on a new adventure that will combine three of these things – my husband and I have just got a job in Vietnam managing a centre for endangered primates. We will be helping with rescues of gibbons, monkeys and lorises destined for the pet or traditional medicine trade and rehabilitating them for wild release. We will be living on an island in the jungle! And of course we will be seeing lots of South-East Asia and eating some amazing food.
Hopefully this adventure will fill me with fuel for writing too!
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If you want to know more about Yvonne, check out her website here: http://www.yvonnewritesbooks.com/mybookskids.html
For reviews of Little Red Riding Hood (Not Quite), check out the Booksellers NZ review here: https://booksellersnz.wordpress.com/2015/04/09/book-review-little-red-riding-hood-not-quite-by-yvonne-morrison-illustrated-by-donovan-bixley/
And my review here on the blog.
This is day seven of the blog tour featuring each of the finalists in the Children’s Choice category of the awards. Earlier today I posted Donovan’s answers to the illustrator’s interview for this title and you can find that interview here – https://bestfriendsarebooks.com/2015/06/30/2015-new-zealand-book-awards-for-children-and-young-adults-interview-with-donovan-bixley/. Yesterday’s feature was I am not a Worm, by Scott Tulloch, whose interview can be found here: http://thriftygifty.blogspot.co.nz/2015/07/nz-book-awards-for-children-and-young_2.html. Monday’s feature will be our third picture book, Doggy Ditties from A to Z, by Jo van Dam and Myles Lawford will be covered back on Thrifty Gifty http://thriftygifty.blogspot.co.nz/.
My Best Friends Are Books 