Do you want to be sure you're getting top-shelf books for your favourite people this Christmas - or on any gift-giving occasion? We are making it easy for you! Here is our selection of the very best New Zealand books of 2017 for readers of junior and middle fiction. Junior Fiction Miniwings series by Sally Sutton Published by Scholastic New Zealand RRP $14.99 This new series from Scholastic hooks into an idea that we're sure most children have had at some point (we know we

Poet and children’s writer James Norcliffe is a national treasure. He has been involved in the School for Young Writers in Christchurch for many years, and releases both poetry and junior fiction books regularly. Sarah Forster reviews his latest novel for children. Illustrations of Digger Dagger and Ginny by Patrick McDonald, reproduced with permission of Penguin Random House NZ James Norcliffe specialises in strong, wild characters and a whiff of magic. The Loblolly Boy won

An excerpt from James Norcliffe's Twice Upon a Time, a Junior Fiction novel about Ginny's search for her Pop. It is full of quirky, inventive characters, chief among them Digger Dagger, whom Ginny encounters for the second time below. from Chapter 3 - The Peach Tree In which the mysterious visitor returns It turned out to be a long, disappointing Saturday afternoon. There had been no calls, no messages; there was no news of Pop at all. Perhaps the only good thing was that Ba