As part of our coverage of this year’s NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, we’ve asked the publishers of the YA finalists to explain why, and how, they published the books. Their responses are compelling and passionate, and…
Earlier this month we published a short excerpt from Pieces of You, a major new YA novel from a debut Kiwi author. We asked Denis Wright, YA novelist and experienced high school English teacher to give us his verdict. Let…
An excerpt from Eileen Merriman’s Pieces of You, a Young Adult novel centred on Rebecca, a teen who is the victim of a sexual assault after a party in a city she has just moved to. This passage is from the moment that Becs meets the boy-next-door at a dinner party at her home.
Today, Release, a new YA novel by Patrick Ness, hits the shelves of New Zealand bookshops. We asked a Wellington-based book club – adults who read a lot of YA, and fans of Ness’s previous work – to get together…
Soon after the 2015 banning controversy in New Zealand, Into the River was purchased by US publisher Polis Books, and will be released in paperback in the US this month. We had YA writer and renowned American book critic Michael…
Elizabeth Knox finds a lot to praise about Laini Taylor’s inventive, lyrical and compelling new novel, Strange the Dreamer. Laini Taylor, author of the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy, has another series. A duology, the first book of which…
An excerpt from David Hill’s Flight Path, a YA novel about 18-year-old Jack who wanted to escape boring little New Zealand – but soon finds that flying in a Lancaster bomber to attack Hitler’s forces brings terror as well as excitement.
Bestselling YA author Amie Kaufman will appear at the Auckland Writers Festival, performing both in the schools’ programme and in a free public event on Friday, 19 May. This is the first interview in ‘Across the Ditch’, where we feature…
Briar Lawry reviews Maurice Gee’s latest, The Severed Land, as well as The Edge of Everything by Jeff Giles and Maybe a Fox by Kathi Appelt and Alison McGhee.
Miriama Kamo is one of New Zealand’s foremost broadcasters. She looks back on her book-loving childhood, and that time she tried to get Witi Ihimaera to adopt her. It was a watershed, Pounamu, Pounamu: the book that was the growing…