"Graffiti" by Ben Brown



Lost in Translation (Random House, 2010)

"Graffiti" is a stand out short story in the anthology Lost in Translation: New Zealand Short Stories edited by Marco Sonzogni. I received the book a long time ago but as with all short story books I like to dip into it now and again.
   I was completely blown away by the power and honesty of "Graffiti" by Ben Brown. The author has crafted a tight tale about Tag Dog, a young graffiti artist who roams the city at night doing his bit for creative vandalism. It's easy to empathise with him. Brown has captured the young boy's voice perfectly. 
   This I think, is the secret to the story's impact. The plot is tragic, and the fact that there are so few characters means that there are no distractions. You get sucked into Tag Dog's world immediately and you grieve for him at the end.
   I'll let you know if I find some more outstanding stories in this collection as I go through it. So far the book has been good.

Well done Mandy!

I have just finished reading the great news that Mandy Hager's trilogy The Blood of the Lamb will be published in the USA by Pyr books. Pyr is a Sci/fic and fantasy imprint from Prometheus Books. This is such a fabulous achievement for Mandy as the US market is large and sales will surely come her way. Her books The Crossing, Into the Wilderness and Resurrection were by far the best "Island Stories" I have read over the last two years. They deserve to do well. Congratulations Mandy!

Memories

I spent yesterday cleaning up my office, a never ending task! And here was a photo I found of myself and some PNG warriors, taken at the first Melanesian Arts and Cultural festival hosted in the Solomon Islands in 1998. I just love those feathers, but imagine how many delightful and exotic birds died for such amazing costumes...

Melanesian Arts and Cultural Festival, S.I. Source: Beth Montgomery

The Bone People by Keri Hulme

The Bone People
(Picador, 1985)

It's Christmas and I've just finished reading this massive tome, which concludes with a Christmas party: a drunken, rowdy and full of hope scene. It's been a harrowing week trying to wade my way through The Bone People. There were several times when the violence irked me so much I was tempted to give up, but I had to find out what became of the central character, a six year old autistic boy.
   Simon is orphaned and cannot speak. He has the usual gamut of sensory issues that autistic people have and a talent for collecting trinkets, or stealing them depending on your point of view. When he can't express himself he lashes out violently. All of these things resonate with me now as autism has appeared in my own family. Of course all autistic people are different from one another and heaps of them can speak quite well and wouldn't dream of stealing anything. But the character of young Simon is so well drawn that I instantly felt for him.

   The other two characters were harder to swallow, but they too were drawn with complexity and compassion. Agressive Joe was so cruel to his son, that it made me wince but the story made me aware of the pressure he was under and how broken he was inside. Whereas Kerewin Holmes, the solitary painter who befriends Simon and Joe, and who recovers from a seemingly life-threatening illness seemed to wallow in drink and depression too much for my liking.
   I can't say this was an easy book to read. The Maori throughout became annoying when I had to break the fictional dream to keep flipping to the glossary. However the story was as engrossing as it was confronting. The dialogue was realistic and I got a real sense of the fragile love each of these three characters had for one another.
   This book won the Booker Prize in 1985 and is considered a classic of NZ literature. It's certainly one of those books that stays with you long after you put it down. Give yourself time to read this, it's not light summer entertainment, but it is worth the effort.

Nim's Island by Wendy Orr



Nim's Island (Allen and Unwin, 1999)

There are some books that you think you must get around to reading some day but they are not a priority. I have a whole shelf full of classics that fall into this category. But for me, many Australian children's books are also put to one side as I read something from NZ or elsewhere overseas. This week I had the good fortune to meet Wendy Orr and I picked up a copy of her book Nim's Island. It was quirky and fun, a mixture of Robinson Crusoe and a Roald Dahl type of story. I think it was the drawings that made me think of Dahl's books too. The illustrator Kerry Millard has a similar style to Quentin Blake who depicted much of Dahl's work.
   But first to the plot ...Nim is a young girl who lives with her father on a remote island somewhere in the sea...the location isn't important but it's enough to know that a tourist ship and a cargo ship are within reach occassionally. Nim's Dad has to leave Nim alone on the island for a few days but a mishap at sea during a storm means that he is delayed. Nim is fine with fending for herself but when she gets sick and the bad guys (tourists) threaten her turf, Nim has to resort to drastic measures.
   Throughout the book she corresponds with an adventure author, Alex (who's not so adventurous) and eventually they manage to meet one another. The story works due to the email, solar panel, techno twist, otherwise Nim relies on the abilities of her animal companions who are very nifty in an emergency.
   This is a great adventure for younger readers. It is now also a movie, but I haven't seen it yet. Maybe I'll hire it out over Christmas and let you know if it matches up to the book.

Among the Islands by Tim Flannery

I've been waiting for months for this book to come out, chiefly because it is about two things I find fascinating: the Pacific Islands and biology. Tim Flannery is a scientist and author who has written extensively on prehistoric Australia, mammals of Australia and New Guinea, Climate change and Australian explorers. Among the Islands follows his work as a young field scientist gathering specimens and data in the islands of Melanesia. 

Among the Islands (2011, Text Publishing)

   He travels to islands in Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Fiji and New Caledonia searching for bats, rats, wallabies and possums. I was amazed to read that Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands was once home to three large rats, one as big as a cat even. I remember well the rats that lived in my house in Guadalcanal, gnawing through the walls and electrical cabling almost every night. I was pretty sure they were only regular sized rats. I think I would have totally freaked if they were as big as cats!

A cuscus from Woodlark Island in
PNG. Source: Tim Flannery.

   I was really thrilled to see he had also been to Makira, (another island where I lived for a while), looking for bats.  There are certainly lots of them there! (Each October night I remember the fruit bats squealed in the mango tree outside my bedroom.)  Among the Islands is filled with funny stories of Flannery's travels. Flannery manages to present unfamiliar island customs to the Western reader with sensitivity and understanding. Apart from his muddling east and west in one paragraph about Guadalcanal, I felt totally at home with his descriptions of the Solomon Islands.
   If you are interested in zoology this book is a treasure, and for our Pacific Island friends, this book gives a good account of some of your disappearing wildlife. Maybe this is a good one for a Christmas stocking!

Heart of Danger by Fleur Beale

Heart of Danger
(2011, Random House)

It was great to read the last installment of the Juno of Taris series. As a character Juno has always been feisty, interesting and genuine. Although there was nothing really of 'island' interest in this book, it's still important for me to review it as the first book was such an 'island' classic.
   In this third book, Heart of Danger, Juno returns to once again save the day but I have to admit that this novel wasn't as compelling as the first two. The story is written with an easy style and Juno's voice is friendly and at times hopelessly and endearingly in love, but for all this I felt that the book dragged on too long.
   The action centres around the disappearance of Juno's younger sister Hera. Juno discovers Hera at a bush settlement, a captive of a strange cult-like group.  The girls have to fight their way home and then a court case follows. For me all the action was over once Hera was rescued, but there was still over a hundred pages to go. Despite being disappointed with the tension I felt that the book resolved issues from the first two books well and gave the reader a real sense of optimism about the future of the people of Taris.
    It's well worth reading if you enjoyed the first two books, but I'm not sure that it would stand alone as well as they did. The second half of the book relies a lot on the history of the original novel, Juno of Taris, and there are so many characters that someone new to the series is bound to become confused. Nevertheless this is still a terrific series for teenage readers.

Author Interview: Fleur Beale

Fleur Beale is a kiwi author who has written the terrific Juno of Taris series. The first book in the series, Juno of Taris, won the 2010 Esther Glen Award. The follow up, Fierce September, won the Young Adult Fiction Award in the 2011 NZ Post Children's Book Awards. The final volume, Heart of Danger is available now and published by Random House. I'm reading it right now, so I'll post a review as soon as I finish it. Below is an interview I conducted with Fleur Beale this week.

1                     You are a prolific children’s writer. What is it that you like most about your job?

What I like about being a writer is the freedom. I can work when I want to, and if it's a sunny day I can go to the beach. It's fun too to be in charge of a world that's your own creation. I can also daydream and call it work!
        Can you take us through your typical writing day?

I've got a little office in town in an old building. I go in on the bus in the mornings and write till about 1 or two. Sometimes I'll start again when I get home, or I'll catch up on paperwork. If it's raining, I stay home and write.
     How long did it take you to write the Juno of Taris series and was it originally devised as a series?

When I wrote Juno of Taris I had no thought of writing a series. The idea for that only popped up once the book was published. I wrote the book several years before it was published, but the manuscript got lost on the way to an agent in the US. I printed it out again and when I read it I could see that it needed more work. I threw the manuscript in the cupboard and went off to live in the UK for a year. I didn't look at the story again till some time after I got back home. I read it and still liked the story but by leaving so much time between writing it and revisiting it, I could see clearly where it needed to be worked on. I had to completely rewrite it because the computer the document was on got stolen three days before I was due to leave London and all I had was the discarded manuscript in the cupboard.
       A bio-dome in the Pacific Ocean is an interesting take on speculative fiction. What inspired your idea?

I wanted a remote area where it would be feasible that all communication with the outside world could be cut off. I'd been to the Eden Project in Devon and seen the bio-domes there so I just made the Taris one bigger.
       So far the books in the Juno of Taris series have won some prestigious prizes. Are you surprised by the series’ success so far?

Yes, but very, very delighted!

6                     The blogs you set up were an interesting adjunct to this series. What took you down this path?

I heard a young woman say she could never resist looking up any website address she saw and the blog idea developed from there.

       What are your three favourite island stories?

I'm probably not intrigued by island stories as such, it's more the constraints such an environment places on its inhabitants. I like stories where there are boundaries for the characters to push and struggle against. I enjoyed Mandy Hager's Blood of the Lamb series though, and Anna Mackenzie's Seawreck Stranger trilogy - both of which involve islands.

      If you had to live in an island bio-dome for a year what would your major duties be?

I'd probably be a spinner and weaver. I wouldn't like people to have to depend on my gardening skills!

Thanks Fleur and all the best with your future writing.

Tales of the Tikongs by Epeli Hau'ofa

Tales of the Tikongs
(1983, Longman Paul)

Tales of the Tikongs is a slim volume of twelve short stories. It was published way back in 1983 and unfortunately the Tongan author, Epeli Hau'ofa, has since passed away. Such a shame, since this man was clearly a terrific writer with a sharp wit and a critical eye. His stories make fun of everyone from those in power, such as expatriot workers, clergymen, and Government ministers, to everyday villagers and their children. Nothing is sacred and some stories are quite smutty.
   If you enjoy a good laugh then this collection is a must. Even the tame stories are bound to put a smile on your face. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is feeling a bit miserable or to those who are bogged down by government officialdom.