Monday, April 5, 2010

Notable NZ Books ...

... for children and young adults. Here at the Storylines website.  All the NZ Post Book Award Finalists are there with the exception of Wonky Donkey by Craig Smith which is being lapped up by avid book buyers, but is - according to those in the know - simply a rehash of an old drinking song. Nothing wrong with that if you like old drinking songs, I guess. They certainly have that there's-a-hole-in-my-bucket join-in-ability factor, and the book comes with a CD.


Good to see my mate Fifi's Glory in the list. Now this is a humdinger kiwi original for 11-14 year olds about a 13-year-old in Oamaru called Florence Bright who has a yen to win ... well, anything .... and when thwarted yet again exacts revenge. Having come up so far empty-handed in fiction and in fact (the NZ Post Book Awards snubbed it), the Notable Books List seems to do the trick for young Florence.

A reminder to anyone interested in participating in the Tuesday Poem [posting a poem on a blog or website and linking with other Tuesday Poems] to email me on marymac21ATgmail.com sometime today.

5 comments:

TK Roxborogh said...

this site here has an interesting corrolation to Smith's book
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dRvSPgJG-BMJ:www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/archive/index.php/t-12320.html+%22wonky+donkey%22&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=nz


Isn't this what got Witi into trouble

Unknown said...

There are a few other NZ Post finalists that aren't in the Storylines Notables:
Piggety Wiggety Jiggity Jig Goes to Dad's Cafe isn't on the list, and The Word Witch by Margaret Mahy gets a special mention as much of the material has been published before. It's a huge mystery to many that this book has been included in the Picture Book category in NZ Post as poetry is clearly non-fiction in any library - including our country's National Library. I'd love to know why it's in the PB category.
In the non-fiction category Rangitoto by Maria Gill is in the NZ Post list but not the notables. And in Junior Fiction Des Hunt's Cry of the Taniwha is in NZP whilst the Notables have his Secret of Jelly Mountain, but not Taniwha. Also absent from Notables is My Story: The Mine's Afire.
There are plenty of extras on the notables list too as they choose up to 10 books in each category.
It's always interesting to see what different teams of people will choose, and it will no doubt again be so when LIANZA come out with their shortlist.

Mary McCallum said...

Tania - FASCINATING LINK. It's a funny thing an old drinking song - who owns it? (every drinker seems to....) Many authors adapt old rhymes for children's books e.g. this is the house that jack built, and old lullabies etc etc. Are drinking songs the same? If they've been around for long enough, if 'anon' is the author...?

NZ Book Girl - knew I'd come a cropper throwing the post online without double checking the lists. I was working on memory and the books we displayed at the bookshop. Thank you for setting me straight. And as you say - thank goodness for the different lists chosen by different people, so books like Glory and PWJJ goes to Dad's Cafe etc get their day in the sun.

Anonymous said...

To NZBookgirl's question, my guess is that the reason 'The Word Witch' is in the picture book category for the Book Awards is because it probably wouldn't have been eligible under non-fiction since so many of the peoms have been published previously. But under the picture book category, David's (wonderful) illustrations are counted as 50% of the content of the book and these haven't been published before, meaning that it comes in under the thresh-hold. It will no doubt be the favourite to win the picture book category.

Anonymous said...

To NZBookgirl's question, my guess is that the reason 'The Word Witch' is in the picture book category for the Book Awards is because it probably wouldn't have been eligible under non-fiction since so many of the peoms have been published previously. But under the picture book category, David's (wonderful) illustrations are counted as 50% of the content of the book and these haven't been published before, meaning that it comes in under the thresh-hold. It will no doubt be the favourite to win the picture book category.