Summer reissue: Alie Benge on the book that built a shimmering private world for her and her sisters. First published 10 February 2020. Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its members – click here to learn more about how you can support us from … Read more
Alie Benge on the book that built a shimmering private world for her and her sisters. I own two copies of Little Women. One is bound in white leather, has gilt edges, a gold filigree pattern on the front, and the heft of a family Bible. Each copy of this edition is made to order. … Read more
Tara Ward remembers the book that made every school project sing. If you went school in New Zealand during the ‘80s and ‘90s, there’s one book you’ll remember. The deep blue cover will be etched into your memory, the hand sketched drawings seared onto your emotional core. It was The Lettering Book, a wondrous volume of … Read more
In this extract from a chapter called ‘Deep Time’ in Rebecca Priestley’s new memoir, Fifteen Million Years in Antarctica, Rebecca remembers her peculiar, legume-heavy, art-saturated childhood in Wellington. (And a note from the author: if anyone has a painting from Ruth Priestley’s Antarctic Dream series, Rebecca would love to hear from you.) I grew up in … Read more
Rating your Kiwi Childhood is all about looking back on your formative experiences as a little kid in the 1980s and a bigger kid in the 1990s. This week, Adam Mamo tackles the joy of going to the local dairy with $2. Every suburban kiwi kid had a local dairy growing up. Much like European coffee … Read more
Morgan Godfery was born to a teenage mother and a gang father in Kawerau, New Zealand’s poorest town. He recounts the experience in this essay from the Journal of Urgent Writing, 2017. Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future And time future contained in time past. — T. S. Eliot, … Read more
Has our obsession with keeping kids safe destroyed something beautiful and valuable in their lives – and in ours? Lily Richards considers some new research that suggests unattended children are often in far less danger than many parents think. Sometimes my partner and I leave our children alone at home while we walk down to … Read more