Enemy Camp by David Hill

I am a big David Hill fan, and over the last few years I think he has written some great books explaining life during times of war for young readers.  Enemy Camp is David Hill's 2016 offering.

I picked this book up from the teacher's table of a class I was relieving in, and for the second time this year, I was so enchanted by the book that teacher had, I went and bought it.  I have previously reviewed two other David Hill books: My Brother's War set in World War One about conscientious objectors and the conscription of soldiers, and Brave Company set during the Korean Conflict about a teenage boy in the New Zealand Navy.

Enemy Camp is set in the New Zealand town of Featherston during the second World War, where the Japanese prisoner of war internment camp was sited.  The book starts in late 1942 and followed events through until after the traumatic events of 25 February 1943 at the camp.

Here is the front cover and blurb:

The central character is Ewen, who is at primary school.  His teacher has asked the students in his class to keep a diary or journal of their lives, as he believes they are living through a very special time.  Therefore, the story is written in Ewen's voice in the format of a journal.  Some days he writes about quite mundane things, and other days he writes about some very dramatic events and how he views and feels about them.

Ewen's father works at the internment camp after returning from the Battle of Greece due to injuries sustained in battle.  Ewan and his friends Barry and Clarry (who is suffering from the after affects of polio) are fascinated by the inmates in the internment camp and take every opportunity to visit the camp.  This eventually results in the boys taking lessons in the Japanese language and ettiquette from one of the Japanese officers at the camp.

However, not everyone in Featherston feels so friendly towards the Japanese and they rail against any form of positive contact with the prisoners or their culture.  The prisoners of war also rail against what they consider to be unfair and struggle with the shame of being POWs, because now their families will shun them if and when the war ends.  They consider that death is more honourable than being a live POW.

This all combines to one of the most dramatic episodes of the war on New Zealand war, which Ewen, Barry and Clarry are in the middle of.  This event was so traumatic the New Zealand government suppressed it for a number of years for fear that if the Japanese government found out about it, they would mete out unfair treatment to the POWs in their care from New Zealand.  But New Zealand was yet to find out how truly terrible the treatment of POWs by the Japanese really was.

I would definitely recommend this book to boys from age 9 or 10 to read.  I will be adding this to my collection of books for ANZAC day and reading this to a class in the future.  It's a great Christmas gift for a boy aged ten and up.

Wonder by RJ Palacio

Teachers often ask for books that others recommend to read to children in their classes.  One book that has often been favourably recommended over the last year was RJ Palacio's novel Wonder.  Teachers spoke of it being written from a the point of view of the central character, as well as other children in his life.  They also spoke of the content being very valuable for children.

Currently I am a relief teacher, and one class I was in recently was having this book read to them.  I certainly wasn't going to spoil it for the teacher by reading it to the class, but while the class did their silent reading I started dipping into this book (good teachers model the behaviours of reading).  I enjoyed the first 50 pages so much that the next time I was in town I searched the book out in the Paper Plus I was in and purchased my own copy to read.

So hear is the front cover, and the ever so brief blurb:

The book is written mostly from the point of view of a boy called August Pullman.  August is 10 years old.  He has never been to school because he was born with a serious cleft pallet issue as well as another facio cranial issue.  As a result, August was home schooled due to medical issues, numerous surgeries and to protect him from the reactions of others.  However, at age 10, his parents decide it is time that August start school, in 5th grade, the beginning of Middle School.

Beecher Prep's Middle School Director, Mr Tushman, arranges for three students to give August a tour around the school during the summer break and so August will know three students on his first day of school.  The reactions of these students vary, but August is used to reactions to his appearance and tries to put on a good front to these fellow students, the staff and his family.

The book covers the journey August has during his fifth grade year.  It covers how he forms relationships with other students, deals with rejection, bullying, ignorance and fear - some of it from parents of other children. 

Occasionally the point of view switches.  His older sister Via, his friends Summer and Jack, and his sister's friends Justin and Miranda talk about their own journeys and their journey with August during this time, as they also face the challenges of forming new relationships, rejection, bullying, ignorance and fear.

I think this would be a brilliant book for instigating discussion with students, or your own children, on people who are different due to an accident or by birth in appearance.  It would be a great read to for a class, but I would then make it available to students afterwards to read at their own leisure because I think a 10 year old child and up would be able to handle this book as an independent reader.

The Life and Art of Lynley Dodd by Finlay Macdonald

Wow!!  This was a spur of the moment purchase.  I had not even heard that this book had been published at all.  But back in March I was trawling through Paper Plus in the Downtown Plaza in Hamilton, trying to hunt down the third book in the Hunger Games series, and my eyes rested upon this volume.

I'm not a fanatical biography reader, my previous biographies read being mainly All Blacks Josh Kronfeld, Tana Umaga and Mils Muliaina, so this is new territory for me.  However Lynley Dodd is a New Zealand treasure and her books are must haves in my opinion - not just as a teacher or an aunty - I enjoyed them before I became either.

The Life and Art of Lynley Dodd by Finlay Macdonald (another writing legend of New Zealand) is just gorgeous.  Feast your eyes on the front, back and inside covers for starters:

  

The inside covers were actually a mini autobiography which Lynley Dodd produced in 1995 for In Flight magazine.

Macdonald has had access to pictures, notes and letters right back into Dodd's childhood.  There are scribbles she did at primary and secondary school, beautiful drawings from Art School, the doodles she did as an art teacher and young mother.... it is all there, cataloguing her evolution to become one of New Zealand's most beloved authors and illustrators.

All the way through the book are the mock ups as well as the final illustrations that make it into a published book by Lynley.  She discusses her obsessive perfectionism she has towards the pictures and words, how even when the book is sent off to the printers and arrives in its final form that she can barely look at it because she knows she want to re-draw all the pictures again. 

Her long time collaborators Ann Mallinson (publisher until 2009) and Margaret Cochran (designer) talk about her high standards and the degree of the control she and her small team have asserted to keep the Hairy Maclary brand from being diluted and exploited.

Throughout the book there are excerpts from various books that I couldn't help but read out loud to the cat because the language is so much fun.  Scott Optican (associate professor of law from Auckland University) informed  Lynley in 2009 as she received a distinguished alumni award from the University of Auckland that she was using anapaestic tetrameter as her method of writing rhyme.  Lynley responded that she did not know what that was and was surprised by his observation.  She said she 'just wrote what sounded good to me'.  This timing is used by Dr Seuss and in the story The Night Before Christmas.  It seems Lynley has used it by instinct and it is a timing that works beautifully for a child's picture book.

This book is a beautiful insight into one of New Zealand's most celebrated children's authors.  She is not only celebrated by children, but by parents and teachers as well, as there is so much in her books that endears them to adults too.

It gives a real eye-opener into what it takes to produce a book to the standard which Lynley Dodd has set for one of her children's books.  It is also and insight into the evolution of an author and how they approach their work.  It also shows that New Zealand authors can foot it on the world stage and can create books that are beloved around the world.

Finlay Macdonald has approached the writing of this book in the same way that he used to present the television show on books he once spearheaded: gently, factually, warmly.   It is an easy read with wonderful illustrations that relate to the period of Lynley's life being discussed and photos that chart her life.  I've been able to dip in and out of this book over the last six or seven months and soak up the charm it exudes.  As a teacher I am inspired to share parts of this book to demonstrate that professional authors have to work hard to create the books that my students love.

This book is a celebration of not only Lynley Dodd, but one of New Zealand's most beloved characters, Hairy Maclary, and his friends.  I'm so glad I gave into impulse and purchased this book.  I know it is a book that I will dip in and out of for years to come.  This is a book I will cherish.

My Brother's War by David Hill

Each year I do a focus on Anzac Day in my classroom.  I'm always on the look out for great books that can communicate the New Zealand experience in the wars New Zealanders have gone to.  I also am a bit of a war novel junkie and have a slight obsession with war documentaries on the History Channel.

Last year the book I purchased as my main focus was My Brother's War by David Hill.

I bought this book last year to add to my Anzac Day resource collection.  I bought it at one of my favourite bookshops, Wright's Bookshop in Cambridge, which always has a great range of children's and young people's literature, a great range of New Zealand authors, and a great range in non-fiction as well.  I rarely leave this book shop without a purchase. 

I read this book to my class and then some children choose to read it themselves afterwards, and one child even bought the book herself.  When children want to re-read or buy the book for themselves, I think that is a great endorsement to the book itself.

David Hill is a well known and established New Zealand author who has written a number of novels and is a well known contributor to the School Journal.  He is a trained teacher and has been published internationally.  These are the links to his Penguin Books profile and his New Zealand Book Council profile and an interview with the Christchurch City Libraries.

The blurb on the back cover reads as follows:

My Dear Mother,
Well, I've gone and done it. I've joined the Army!
Don't be angry at me, Mother dear. I know you were glad when I wasn't chosen in the ballot. But some of my friends were, and since they will be fighting for King and Country, I want to do the same.
 
It's New Zealand, 1914, and the biggest war the world has known has just broken out in Europe.

William eagerly enlists for the army but his younger brother, Edmund, is a conscientious objector and refuses to fight. While William trains to be a soldier, Edmund is arrested.

Both brothers will end up on the bloody battlefields of France, but their journeys there are very different. And what they experience at the front line will challenge the beliefs that led them there.

A compelling novel about the First World War for 9-12 year olds.

The following text and the picture above comes from the Penguin Books New Zealand website:

Penguin Group (NZ) is proud that David Hill’s novel My Brother’s War has won the 2013 Junior Fiction category at New Zealand’s prestigious New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards. The award was announced at a ceremony held in Christchurch last night. My Brother’s War was also the winner in the Children’s Choice Junior Fiction category.

My Brother’s War was released in August 2012 with great success. The compelling novel about the First World War – for 9-12 year olds – follows the lives of two brothers; William who eagerly enlists for the army, and his younger brother Edmund, a conscientious objector refusing to fight. While William trains to be a soldier, Edmund is arrested. Both brothers end up on the bloody battlefields of France, but their journeys there couldn’t be more different.

David is one of New Zealand’s most highly regarded authors for children and young people. His books have been published internationally and he has won awards for his writing in this country and overseas. David was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2004.

Margaret Thompson, Managing Director of Penguin Group (NZ) stated “We heartily congratulate David Hill and are delighted to share in his remarkable success.”  25 June 2013

My class was very excited when the news came through that My Brother's War has won the Junior Fiction category in the New Zealand Post's Children's Book Awards, as well as the Children's Choice Junior Fiction Award. 

The thing I found intriguing about this book was exploring what happened to conscientious objectors.  This link will take you to NZ History for a more detailed description of what a conscientious objector is.  I knew that those who were not enlisted often received white feathers and that conscientious objectors were arrested and put in jail and did hard labour.

What I did not know was that these conscientious objectors were then forced into the army and with no training sent to the Western Front in World War I.

Those who continued to resist were then subjected to what was known as 'field punishment no.1' - a brutal punishment devised by the military hierarchy, which Edmund is subjected to in this book.  TVNZ showed a movie on Tuesday 22 April 2014 called Field Punishment No.1, based on a book of the same name, based on the experiences of Archibald Baxter, New Zealand's most famous conscientious objector.  In fact, Archie is also a significant character in My Brother's War.

Even though My Brother's War is aimed at children aged 9-12, I think even teenagers and adults will thoroughly be engaged in this book.  I think it is a good book to engage boys with, however it was the girls in my class who re-read it for themselves.  It certainly opened my eyes to an area of war very rarely discussed, an area that has been touched upon lightly over the years.  This is definitely a book worth a read in my opinion.

The Peco Incident by Des Hunt

Des Hunt is a New Zealand author.  He was a teacher, and now writes books for children with strong themes about nature, science and technology.  I first heard about Des Hunt when I was teaching on the Coromandel, where Des also has taught and lives, and many parents and teachers talked about how great his books are and what wonderful books they are to get boys reading.  Go to Des Hunt's web page to find out more about him.

 

For Christmas 2012 I bought one of Des' books for my young cousin Sam as a present.  This Christmas I got him The Peco Incident.  I started reading the first few pages as I wrapped Sam's present and then decided that the concept of the book was quite engaging and that I wanted to read it too, and that it would be a great book to read to my class as well.

 

So here is the front cover and blurb on the back cover of The Peco Incident:

 

 

This book was quite engaging from the start.  Danny's cousin Nick arrives from the North Island to stay with Danny and his mum and dad near the albatross colony near Dunedin.  Danny doesn't know Nick too well, and Nick is rather a handful due to having ADHD.

What follows is an adventure tale that would be a New Zealander's worst nightmare - an eco-terrorist who is hell bent on destroying New Zealand's pride and joy - its native birds - to prove a warped idea against factory farming of poultry.

I'm going to read this to my class in 2014 because it brings up a lot of really important themes that I think are important:

• native birds
• factory farming of poultry
• bio-security
• eco-terrorism
• ethical protesting
• cruelty to animals
• safety of animals

I believe this book would create a lot of critical thinking and discussion in my class.  Also Des Hunt (according to his website) is willing to interact with classes about his books, so I think this would add a wonderful dynamic to reading the book with the class.

I really enjoyed this book, and I am an adult.  It brought up a lot of ethical questions as I read it and also gave me further insight into our bird species of New Zealand (a favourite topic I like to teach).  I think it is a book that people of all ages would enjoy, but especially boys aged 11+ could independently read and hook into this book and enjoy the adventure aspect of it.