Mandy Hager

Interview with Mandy Hager

Kate McIntyre interviewed Mandy Hager about her new title Protest! Shaping Aotearoa, delving into how she chose her themes, what protests can achieve, and how she is supporting the younger generation. It’s easy to take the rights we have for…

Book Reviews: The Latest in NZ Non-Fiction

It isn’t news to anyone that Aotearoa is currently marking a significant anniversary, as we pass the 250 years since James Cook circumnavigated this country’s islands in the H.M.B. Endeavour. Some see it as a cause for celebration, others commemoration,…

Book Awards: The Young Adult Finalists

The Young Adult finalists in the NZCYA Awards encompass a variety of approaches to fantasy, a touch of dystopia, political intrigue and coming of age storytelling. The Young Adult category also happens to be one where the target demographic is…

2018 End-of-Year Shopping List: YA Fiction

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 2018’s very best New Zealand books…

Author interview: The Hager-Hill Histories

In this fascinating insight into the minds of two of our best children’s literature writers, Mandy Hager and David Hill talk to each other about their new books, Ash Arising and Finding, and about writing for teens. David Hill: Mandy,…

Book Reviews: Two reality-based YA titles

Mandy Hager and Helen Vivienne Fletcher are both Wellington-based writers of YA and other things. Sarah Forster was excited to read Fletcher’s second YA publication, alongside a long-awaited sequel to The Nature of Ash from Hager. Underwater, by Helen Vivienne…

Book List: Local YA as good as the internationals

I’ve long maintained that our Young Adult authors are world class. But I’ve frequently heard that teens have a touch of what our adults apparently have – cultural cringe; an assumption that NZ means boring, ordinary. We need to read…

The reckoning: an argument for inclusiveness

There’s a book for every reader, and a time for every book. Mandy Hager explains why sometimes Great Literature isn’t what we need. In 1992 I went to the public library in hope that I might find some picture books…