Celebrating Children's Book week Part 6/ Part 2

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Elsie Locke (and here (isn't the Christchurch Library site the coolest!)).


I love Elsie Locke because her books are based on real New Zealand History and the pictures they conjured in my head of places I was already in love with were both exciting and comfy at the same time.


I probably need to give a bit of background here... I grew up in Dunedin. My Dad and a couple of Uncles were surfies that meant we got to blat around the Otago Peninsular. The ocean and the hills, the sea creatures and birds, all that good stuff were my backyard. I lived just down the road from the Otago Museum and visited there EVERY day on my way home from school. Like my darling boy I used to make up my own projects to complete. One in particular was about Pengiuns and I interviewed one of the Museums zoologists John Darby who was a penguin expert; Yellow-eyed in particular but he had also done the whole Antarctica thing. The story is that he has a glass eye because his eye was picked out by an Emperor Penguin- he definitely had a glass eye... but I am not so sure how he got it. I also had a membership to the Otago Early Settlers Museum so I could go there whenever I wanted, and I did often. It was a friends of the museum volunteer type thing so you had to earn your keep... sometimes I just got to dust and and sweep. Other times I scored cool jobs like trialling the activities they were planning for the school holiday programme and things like that. I earned myself back stage passes essentially for both places. I ate up all the delicious Natural and social history that I could... if only my own kids could have that opportunity! About the same time as all this was going on my Dad moved to Christchurch and so the Canterbury area became a part of my perspective and Banks Peninsular and the Port Hills became slightly familiar as well. So Elsie Locke's book The Runaway Settlers was like literary gold to my mind... a story with children in places I knew, using tools that I had the opportunity to see and touch way cool! She has also written Canoe in the Mist which I have read but for the life of me can't recall. Elsie's books would suit an audience 10 years +

The Otago Early Settlers Museum

The Otago Museum

Joan De Hamel.
Take the Long Path is one of my most favourite ever books for many of the same reasons that I like Elsie's books except Take the long path is set in the present time in Otago. And it's got Yellow-eyed penguins... and I love Yellow-eyed penguins... some of the coolest times spent with my Dad were trips to Little Papanui beach and Victory beach in search of penguins! Joan de Hamel also writes for the smaller reader set she did Hemi's Pet etc. Take the Long Path and her other book X Marks the Spot for readers 10+ years.

CS Lewis.



CS Lewis wrote the Narnia books, you know The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe etc now made famous by the movie of the same name. {Sidenote; ever since The Neverending Story I vowed not to watch a movie based on a book I love, I had to make an exception here because it was partly made on the airbase next to our house and a friend worked on it . As far as turning works of Fantasy Fiction into a book can ever go this is a good one.} I have to admit that I totally missed the whole religious element until someone pointed it out to me as a grown-up (stupid grown-ups have to be all analytical and stuff... just enjoy it for what it is; a damn fine story).


There are 7 books in the Narnia series and TLTWATW is the second one. The Magician's Nephew sets the scene and tells you how Earth became connected with Narnia in the first place. I can tell you from experience this is NOT a book to read aloud... it's hardwork, CS Lewis was born in 1898 and was a proper Irish Gent and wrote the books in his proper Irish gent english. For that reason also I'd suggest that these books are suited to 12 year olds + or gifted/very mature younger readers. I prefer to read them in order but that's just the sort of girl I am... if you aren't that way inclined the I think The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the best.

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