Young adult novel These Violent Delights was released in the US three weeks ago and is already a massive hit. Sherry Zhang introduces a star. Chloe Gong wrote These Violent Delights in her childhood home in Auckland in May 2018. As in: that month she started writing it, and also finished. She was 19. Seven … Read more
David Hill’s beloved junior fiction book See Ya, Simon is 28 years old. The boy who inspired it died in his first year of high school. That backstory is well known but now, Hill fills in the detail, including the obligation he felt to his daughter, and the grief that kept him company as he … Read more
Looking for a family friendly drama to enjoy this lockdown? TVNZ’s new teen series Mystic might be the perfect choice. Out in the television galaxy, somewhere between the giddy orbit of Paw Patrol and Riverdale, lies a dark void where young adults wait patiently for their next favourite series. While there are plenty of TV … Read more
Netflix’s adaptation of The Baby-Sitters Club makes long-time fan Tara Ward fall in love with the series all over again. When I was 12 years old, my class had to write a letter to a famous person. Some of my classmates wrote to an All Black, Tom Cruise or Hulk Hogan. I wrote a four-page … Read more
The embargo on this year’s list has just been lifted. Here are all the books in the running for a gong. Huge caveat: we are yet to read them all. We’re working on that, snarled-up postal system permitting. So please consider these initial thoughts. We’re very chuffed to see Our Toby (Morris) in there with … Read more
I had planned to write an unabashed rave review, and then another book landed in my letterbox – and I just couldn’t read those stories in isolation from my own experience, writes Spinoff books editor Catherine Woulfe. I want to write about two books that I’ve just read, and then I want to tell you … Read more
A new fantasy series by Isa Pearl Ritchie focuses on a girl who struggles with anxiety and panic attacks. Here, Ritchie explains how her own childhood sparked Awa and the Dreamrealm. I was confused a lot of the way through my schooling. I would zone out a lot in class and I struggled to pay … Read more
As the HBO TV adaptation arrives on NEON, Sam Brooks looks back on His Dark Materials, the only children’s book series he was allowed to read as a kid. A little girl and her shapeshifting daemon. A sweet-voiced, evil-faced woman with a glamourous monkey for a companion. A giant polar bear wearing armour. When I … Read more
New Zealand writer Sherryl Jordan’s elated, transcendent novel for young adults, Winter of Fire, was first released in 1992. A quarter-century later, fans’ pestering has paid off and it’s back in bookstores. This makes Catherine Woulfe very happy. And below, two more Winter of Fire megafans share what the book means to them. It’s hard … Read more
Remember Animorphs? The book where children turn into animals and save the world? Charlie O’Mannin does – because he just read all 54 of them in five days. This is his story. Animorphs is a children’s book series by K. A. Applegate about a group of teenagers who learn about a parasitic alien race, the Yeerks, … Read more
Freya Daly Sadgrove, a bookseller at The Children’s Bookshop in Wellington, chooses the very best picture books, chapter books and YA novels of 2017. PICTURE BOOKS THE BEST: I Just Ate My Friend by Heidi McKinnon (Allen & Unwin, $27.99) I’ve seen a bunch of picture books featuring monsters this year, and the trend seems … Read more
Tessa Duder provides a brief history of children’s literature in New Zealand – and finds multiple reasons to be cheerful about the state of play in 2017. One grey, misty morning in the Auckland suburb of Mt Eden, a 43-year-old teachers college librarian is walking to work. His eyes are drawn up to that shrouded, … Read more
Michael Botur shares his experience with running a Boosted campaign to publish his sci-fi novel. This is the story of how I went about trying to crowdfund my latest novel. If I get enough donations, I’ll shortly wrap up a crowdfunding campaign to self-publish a kickass young adult novel. Moneyland is a YA dystopian sci-fi … Read more
Holly Walker reviews a moody, gothic novel set in the brooding countryside of the Wairarapa. There’s something about the Wairarapa. Big skies. Beautiful old villas. Close-knit communities, with a pointy edge of small town meanness. There’s also something about the dying days of 1999, that strange, tense moment before we ticked over into the 21st … Read more
All this week the Spinoff Review of Books looks at the new memoir by former Green MP Holly Walker. Today: we asked author Tessa Duder to respond to the chapter which credits her classic YA novel Alex as a formative influence. During the winter of 1986, I wrote the first book of the Alex quartet. … Read more