Wonder and the Young Eye: the secret world of children’s literature - a presentation given by Kate De Goldi at Featherston Booktown 2018 - Fish 'n' Chip Supper.

Kia Ora Koutou, Talofa Lava, Warm Pacific greetings to all of you gathered here.

I’ll begin with a favourite Jenny Bornholdt poem, ‘In the garden’ :

In the garden

the bulbs run riot

root systems go

all over the place

we crack open huge dry

clods of earth and uncover

white bulbs of onion flowers

embedded like fossils

their roots like thin streamers

partying down through the soil.

So we have a white flower

propped on the top of a green stem

a plain enough thing

while underneath

the feelers are out

hooking into other systems

forming the network

the flower an undercover agent

posted on the watch

a decoy of simplicity.

This is a poem about the glorious fecundity beneath the soil of a garden – the everyday miracle of planting and growth, of the complex interaction between soil nutrients and bulbs.... but, it is also a persuasive metaphor for the writing and reading process....That undercover agent, that decoy of simplicity – the flower posted on the watch – is an analogue for language … for the power of words: story and verse … The poem suggests that yes, the written word gives us straightforward, organised hieroglyphs on a page, plainly denoting certain thoughts or events … but, words are also complex, resonating symbols; they throb with associations, memories, and sensory experiences. Words have ‘root systems’ as it were, roots with thin, persistent streamers partying down through the soil of our unconscious, making far-reaching connections. These are the connections that form our intellectual networking, that deepen our experience as human beings.

I think of this poem as a kind of epigraph for this talk. I’ll be thinking aloud about the riotous bulbs of the story and language experience for children, and all those who have maintained a child’s capacity for curiosity and wonder. The Young Eye – as I’ll suggest later – is something of an undercover agent, too, feelers out, prospecting, gathering and decoding news of the adult world. I’ll be reading some brief extracts from children’s books as I go, and finishing with a story – call it a bedtime tale.

I’ve spent a good deal of my working life over the last twenty-five years visiting schools of all kinds, talking with students about reading, and working with them on their imaginative writing. It’s a privilege to have regular experience of the New Zealand classroom, to witness over and over the transforming possibilities of reading and writing. There is considerable data available now that substantiates the links between reading & writing, social capital, and economic success – for both individuals and communities. Literacy and reading for pleasure, we now know, are foundation stones in the construction of social capital and the capacity to move out of poverty. I’m acutely aware of my own cultural and economic privilege in this regard – the consequence of a fortunate life immersed in literature. It’s painful indeed to acknowledge the thousands of people in our national whanau who are shut out of economic and cultural prosperity because of their inability to read. It’s painful to think about the hundreds of children who have rarely been read aloud to. Three cheers to the Featherston Booktown Trust for their role in bringing books and people together. And a long and grateful salute to Joy Cowley, Booktown’s patron, who has done God’s work over half a century, bringing the good news of language and story to children throughout New Zealand – and the world.

One winter’s day when our son Jack was four years old, he stood with me in the bathroom as I cleaned; he was watching …

Jack was a typical four-year-old boy in many ways. He was active and very playful – he loved rough and tumble and pretend sword fighting with his Dad, thrashing about with his small cricket bat, taking slavish secondary roles in his sister’s operatic games. Like many four year olds he lived a sustained imaginative life – some mornings he would announce solemnly from his bed that he was not Jack today - he was Peter Pan or Robin Hook or once, wonderfully, Attila the Honey.

He was also – perhaps not quite so commonly – a rather contemplative four-year-old. He could sit very still for long periods, sucking his fingers, dreaming and – I always supposed – musing. He could spend a good deal of time just biding in adult company, watching and listening.

And that winter’s day while I busied about in the bathroom Jack stood very still, fingers in mouth, watching, not me, but the tap over the bath. He was staring at the cold tap which steadily dripped, a slow beat, drip, drip, drip…The water pooled briefly at the bottom of the bath then disappeared down the plug hole. After a while I stopped and watched Jack watching the dripping tap, wondering what he was thinking. Eventually, it seemed he’d come to a decision, a conclusion; he took his fingers from his mouth, turned to me and said, ‘Water has a short life.’

It took me a while to realise what he meant, how he had interpreted what he’d been watching: that water – this water at any rate – lived only as long as it took for it to come from the tap and disappear down the hungry mouth of the plug hole – a dark eternity in the imagination of many small children.

It was a charming perception, one that briefly readjusted my own staid perceptions – hidebound, as they were, like most adults’, by age and impatience and mad activity. I glimpsed a different way of seeing a dripping tap and water’s life cycle – and for a moment water was personified and its short life seemed strangely poignant. But, further, I was connected fleetingly to the cycle of all living things, even the arc of human life – revealed by the birth and death of a drip of water, translated beautifully, by our four-year-old son.

I’m sure many of you will have experienced such moments with children – your own or the children of friends’ and family, or children overheard in the street, in supermarkets and malls, on buses. We collect these moments and relate them to each other, because they’re endearing, yes, but also because they’re often genuinely startling, literally refreshing – windows of new meaning open up, our jaded palates are rejuvenated, we are reminded again how to look attentively and wonderingly at the world and all ordinary marvels.

The great American editor and publisher, Ursula Nordstrum – the woman who discovered and nurtured talents like EB White, Maurice Sendak, and Russell Hoban – put it like this: children are new though we are not. This was the advice she routinely gave her writers and illustrators, reminding them that nothing about the world was yet exhausted for children; quite the reverse. Everything seen, smelt, touched, heard by the young, constituted an act of astonishing discovery and revelation. They wandered through the first years of their lives like Adam and Eve in Eden, touching and naming and learning, astounded by every new thing.

The English poet Craig Raine understood this when he wrote his poem, A Martian sends a postcard home. Raine’s conceit is that a Martian has come to earth and dwelt amongst us. He has, Raine suggests, observed the seasons and natural forces, he has studied human behaviour and relationships, looked with fascination at machinery, domestic implements and technology; he has learnt about history and literature and the noble achievements of our civilisation. And then, excited by all he’s learnt, he’s sent a postcard to the folks back on Mars, describing this new world…These descriptions are not instantly recognisable to us; there is a wonderful misalliance of language and perception so that the poem becomes a series of riddlesome metaphors, rich with allusion and misdirection…and because of that the reader is asked by the poet to appreciate ordinary things, daily experiences, in a new light.

Here, for instance, is how the Martian describes books:

Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings

and some are treasured for their markings -

They cause the eyes to melt

or the body to shriek without pain.

I have never seen one fly, but

sometimes they perch on the hand.

Our Martian has heard something about the history of printing (hence the naming word Caxton), he understands the book is man-made so rightly calls it mechanical, yet it flaps and perches, like a winged creature, and surely it has the powers of something sentient because it can make you laugh and cry…

This artful mash up of slightly misapplied observations means that the commonplace book is startlingly transformed for us – brought alive briefly and figuratively, so that we understand it – just for a while - as a mysterious kind of bird.

Mist – on the other hand – is when the sky is tired of flight

and rests its soft machine on the ground:

Then the world is dim and bookish

like engravings under tissue paper.

Here, the sky is personified – it grows weary, having to hold itself aloft like some big bird ceaselessly beating? But its big tired body is a ‘soft machine,’ too, and when it comes to ground, enveloping all, everything around us becomes hazy and indistinct, we must imagine what is there and how it looks, much as we do when reading…

And what about this?

In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps,

that snores when you pick it up.

If the ghost cries, they carry it

to their lips and soothe it to sleep

with sounds. And yet, they wake it up

deliberately, by tickling with a finger.

An adult’s thoughts drift inevitably towards a baby (as the poet means them to)…soothing to sleep; waking deliberately by tickling…But, no, this is an apparatus - once again, the poet has invested an inanimate, man-made object with human characteristics…this apparatus sleeps and snores and cries…

It is, of course, a telephone (they carry it to their lips…the tickling is dialing)…this uncanny metaphor does beautifully what metaphor must: misdirect us, say one thing in terms of another, make a ‘true lie’…transfigure, if you like – so that the telephone is made vividly anew…we look at it for a while as a troubled, slightly persecuted slave to human caprice – and of course that in turn prompts us to consider the general human tendency to whimsy and thoughtlessness…This is a crafty, playful poem enjoying language and its games, but at heart it is a reminder of all that it is to be human…

And not least in the final lines:

At night, when all the colours die,

they hide in pairs

and read about themselves -

in colour, with their eyelids shut.

We are fugitive creatures, the Martian suggests as he signs off…needing the comfort of another through the long night; and though together, we’re somehow always separate, finding ultimate reassurance in stories about ourselves…

A terrific poem. I use it often in workshops, with children and adults alike, and I’ve noticed over time that the younger the student the more likely they are to accurately guess those riddlesome metaphors. Such is the relative proximity of 8 and 9 and 10 year olds to the Martian-like wonder and openness of early childhood that they have little difficulty divining telephones, books, toilets, cars, watches and rain in those singular descriptions.

It is just the same with ears. Over the last ten years one of the creative writing exercises I use has given me a long list of similes for the ear, dreamt up by students between the ages of 8 and 12.

Let’s think about the ear, I suggest…Feel it, check out the ear beside you…What a peculiar and ingenious thing it is. They stroke and poke their own ears, reacquainting themselves with the gristly labyrinths, the crevices, the vanishing hole, the soft lobe…Then I ask them to think about what else in the world the ear might be like – because – to quote the American children’s writer, Jane Yolen, who in turn is quoting Aristotle: ‘to make metaphors implies an eye for resemblances. To make a good metaphor a writer (of any age) has to be a good observer first – which in some senses is the measure of an educated person.’

And why, you might ask, all this emphasis on metaphor (and its sister, simile)? Because, as Yolen explains, a metaphor is when we are saying one thing, one important, and perhaps even deep, thing in terms of something else…It is, in the philosopher Philip Wheelwright’s words, ‘a medium of fuller, riper knowing…’ So, helping children hone and maintain their capacity for simile and metaphor is not so much for use in their writing, but a way of keeping them in close touch with the world, with human experience…it is, literally, increasing their understanding...

Here are a few of the rich observations they’ve made over the years, then shaped into small intense sentences. I like to think of this litany as a conversation between all these students from all those schools, a joyous batting back and forth as they vie for the truest truth in their ‘wisely felt errors’

The ear is a question mark within a question.

A cuddly baby sleeps amongst roughly folded blankets.

It is a coil of pale pink plasticine.

Two together make a pink-and-white butterfly.

No, the ear is a deformed mushroom, half stamped-on.

It is a wan, shrivelled kidney bean.

Listen, ears are fireworks, they are Catherine Wheels which blind your vision.

From behind they are flat car tyres.

An ear is a quarter moon, a man perched, in his bed.

Or, the letter C, like a pre-schooler learning to write.

This ear is an artist’s palette. This ear is a sculpture, coming into being.

It is a baby in a mother’s womb.

No, it is a piece of hard plastic, melted on the side of the kettle.

Children – our Martians - fresh and untainted in the material world, their heads unclouded by tired knowledge - offer us the priceless opportunity to see fully again, to have our hearts and minds rinsed and refreshed. My own children are grown but I remember their insights so clearly, and now I have grandchildren, though they’re older too and moving slowly away from those nifty angular perceptions.

Luckily, there are always new children – my great-niece, Eva, for instance, who aged three and a half, and contemplating the death of our mother, Frances – her first death, in a sense – said to us one day as she bounced higher and higher on the trampoline – and later I could see that the climbing onto the trampoline and the glorious bouncing and thoughts about someone here and then mysteriously not here had all swirled in her head and prompted a question: ‘Has Frances,’ – bounce, bounce – ‘has Frances just got off her life?’ Yes, we said, realising the truth of it, that was exactly what she’d done.

Or, a friend’s daughter, Jean, smart as paint and hilariously sardonic, who aged six, after visiting the Catholic Church at Jerusalem on the Whanganui River, became fascinated by images and statues of the Virgin Mary and questioned her parents about this curious personage. Her father said he didn’t have much time for Jesus and Mary and all that stuff. They didn’t really go in for religion. Jean, though, needed to explore this business and drew a series of pictures of the Virgin in her various incarnations (Our Lady of Sorrows, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady Star of the Sea, etc)… all blue and white, with hands prayerfully clasped, rosary beads hanging from their wrists. She sent me one in the post. MARY, she had written in careful capitals. And underneath in brackets: (Who I don’t believe in.) That girl knows how to have a dollar each way.

I’m lucky enough to experience these linguistic sleights of hand, those small moments of illumination, often, thanks to the great gift of the New Zealand Book Council’s Writers in schools scheme. But sometimes there are no flesh and blood children at hand, and the world turns predictably and it’s hard to retrieve wonder.

Then, I do one of two things. I begin to write. Or, I reach for some of the titles on my bookcase by the great children’s writers of the twentieth and twenty-first century. I might take down The Midnight Fox by Betsy Byars, which begins like this:

Chapter One: Bad News

Sometimes at night when the rain is beating against the windows of my room, I think about that summer on the farm. It has been five years, but when I close my eyes I am once again by the creek watching the black fox come leaping over the green, green grass. She is as light and free as the wind, exactly as she was the first time I saw her.

Or sometimes it is that last terrible night, and I am standing beneath the oak tree with the rain beating against me. The lightning flashes, the world is turned white for a moment, and I see everything as it was – the broken lock, the empty cage, the small tracks disappearing into the rain. Then it seems to me that I can hear, as plainly as I heard it that August night, above the rain, beyond the years, the high, clear, bark of the midnight fox.

Or, I might take The diamond in the window by Jane Langton, which begins with a chapter entitled ‘Edward misbehaves’.

Edward Hall sat under the front porch of the big house on Walden Street in Concord, Massachusetts, and thought about his two ambitions in life. The first was to be the President of the United States. That was not very likely, but it was at least possible. The second was unlikely and impossible altogether, because he had been born into the wrong family. Why, oh, why wasn’t his name ‘Robert Robinson’ instead of ‘Edward Hall’?

Eddy took out of his pocket a collection of bottle tops, matchboxes, and pennies and arranged them on the ground in a decorative pattern. If only fathers and mothers would be more careful when they chose names! If only they would pick names that sounded well in Backwards English! ‘Edward Hall’, for example, was all right in ordinary English, but it was terrible the other way around – ‘Drawde Llah’ didn’t sound like anything. But ‘Robert Robinson’ – there was a name! If you turned it backwards and softened the ‘s’ it was transformed into a name as strange and fantastic as that of an ambassador from some foreign land – ‘Trebor Nosnibor!’ Edward put his two ambitions in life together and whispered under his breath, ‘Introducing the President of the United States, Mr Trebor Nosnibor! How glorious.

Or, this one: Stop the Train by Geraldine McCaughrean…Chapter One ‘The Red Rock Runner’ opens thus:

Like a bad-tempered queue-jumper, the train rolled up against its buffers and gave a vicious jolt. Then it gave another in the opposite direction – a jerk which travelled from one coach to the next, tipping passengers back into their seats or forward out of them. Skillets and coffee pots clattered to the floor. Above Cissy’s head, a pair of spurs scraped on the carriage roof, and a saddle slithered past the window, flailing its stirrups. But still the train did not move off.

From end to end came the noise of men and children imitating the guard’s whistle, but another ten minutes crawled by without the train making a move, and every second the carriage became hotter and hotter.

Cissy glanced sideways at the couple alongside her: a pasty pair, both shaped like cottage loaves whose dough was still rising as they cooked in the sweltering heat…

Or, Antonio S and the mystery of Theodore Guzman by Odo Hirsch.

Antonio S was a boy who knew all sorts of things. His father was a magician and his mother was a doctor. So even though Antonio was only ten, he already knew things that some people never learn in a whole lifetime. He could hop backwards in a perfectly straight line with his eyes closed and his arms folded in front of him, and he could tell whether a person had measles just by looking inside his or her mouth. He could juggle three oranges and make a fourth one appear out of his sleeve. He knew how to listen to the sounds of a person’s heartbeat. And these were only some of the things Antonio knew…

These stories have quite different settings and subject matter; each has quite a distinct narrative voice and tone. Stop the Train is a cracking adventure with a large cast, set in the American West of the 1890s. The Midnight Fox, a deft mix of the comical and the elegiac, centres around a young boy’s attempts to protect a fox from the gun of his hunter uncle. The diamond in the window is a singular piece of magic realism, an intellectual adventure and homage to Concord’s great literary luminaries, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau and Louise May Alcott. Antonio S. is a story of friendship and mystery, set in a big old house with secret passages. Two of the writers are American, one English and another Australian. All have the crucial faculty that lies at the heart of great writing for children: a young eye.

The American children’s writer, Katherine Paterson explains the young eye by quoting British children’s writer, Leon Garfield, who in turn quotes another:

‘Edward Blishen has a good phrase for books that are right for children. What they have in common, he says, is a young eye at their centre. No matter how beautifully observed an incident may be, if it is solely an adult’s view of young behaviour, it passes over a child’s head and heart. Gulliver’s Travels may be read by the young, while 1984 is not suitable. Both are satires; both are fantasies; yet Swift has a sense of wonder (a property of Mr Blishen’s ‘young eye’), and Orwell has not. Swift has anger (again a property of youth), while Orwell has only bitterness.’

I would argue further that any story by a good writer with a searching young eye at its centre is always a good book for adults as well – precisely because it reminds the adult again of a forgotten world view: one arising from the child’s distinctive, wide-eyed perspective; it reminds the adult of that property Blishen particularly notes: wonder – a property that can slowly leak from our lives and diminish them, can fatally disconnect us from children and their concerns.

Margaret Mahy was acutely aware of the fragility of wonder. Years ago, she wrote:

‘a perpetual state of wonder and desire (which seem to me the truest state to be in, confronted with the universe) is certainly not the most practical state to try and live in. We are biologically engineered to have the wonder filtered out of our lives, to learn to take astonishing things for granted so that we don’t waste too much energy on being surprised but get on with the eating and mating, gardening, feeding cats, complaining about taxes, and so on.’

Alison Lurie, who has written widely and provocatively on children’s literature, notes that the most gifted children’s writers have all somehow resisted the slow leakage of wonder. They ‘are not like other writers’, she says ‘instead, in some essential way, they are children themselves. There may be outward signs of this ‘condition’ [she comes close to suggesting it’s a pathology]: these people may prefer the company of boys and girls to that of adults…they are impulsive, dreamy, imaginative and unpredictable…’ She cites the childlike preoccupations of E. Nesbit (author of The Railway Children); James Barrie’s elaborate games with the Davies boys – which were the seeds for Peter Pan; Lewis Carroll’s complete relaxation around children. She speculates about the cultural and social reasons for this and argues that the works of these writers are truly subversive precisely because of their insistence on the maintenance of a young eye.

The ‘wonder’ that is part of the young eye can, of course, be interpreted in more than one way. There is astonishment, on the one hand – the astonishment that is implicit in the way all those children have beheld the ear, the way the Martian interprets our world – the way Odo Hirsh presents Antonio S’s many talents, the way Eddy Hall marvels at the magnificence of a name like Trebor Nosnibor, the way the narrator of The midnight fox considers the beauties and terrors of the natural world. But wonder also suggests curiosity and puzzlement…why and how and please explain are there too.

I think there are three crucial things underpinning the young eye that is at the heart of the outstanding books. Firstly, that young eye has a kind of merciless clarity – a little like the boy in ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’. While the adults fawn and cheer the naked Emperor, the small boy speaks aloud the startling truth that the adults are wilfully denying: ‘but he isn’t wearing anything at all!’ And think of the frank, unvarnished way Cissy observes the effect of the heat on the ‘pasty pair’ beside her in the train who are ‘shaped like cottage loaves’. Later she sees the woman’s cheeks, ‘glistening with sweat, crimped like apple turnovers.’ Later still, and more ominously, she sees out the window, ‘a huge black pyramid – like a haystack, but for its colour – moving across the landscape, slow and steady, keeping pace with the train. Cissy saw plainly now the dismal warning behind this gloomy sight. Coffins, stacked twelve high and twenty deep swayed with the motion of the car, listed towards the passengers of the Red Rock Runner, as if beckoning them all on towards an early grave.’ Stop the train is a very funny book and rich with the excitement of settling the West, but because it is told through Cissy’s unflinching eye, we are constantly aware of the behaviour of the adults – odd and inconsistent, sometimes downright duplicitous. Cissy finds it impossible to get a straight answer from her parents about the family’s prospects in the new west; they insist it’s a great new beginning, but the coffins suggest another possibility no adult will admit to.

In Father’s Arcane Daughter by EL Konigsburg, the narrator Winston, a poor little rich boy, cloistered in his family’s Pittsburgh mansion along with his disabled sister, Heidi, and his anxious parents, is acutely aware that it is not in fact a fear of kidnapping that motivates his mother’s over-protectiveness, it is shame at her daughter’s disabilities and physical appearance. ‘I watched Heidi smile that warm, wet creature smile of hers and she larruped away. I liked the word larrup, it suited her; water buffaloes larrup and so do hyenas. I had accumulated a secret vocabulary of words that applied to Heidi’s queer bumpy ways.’ Winston is unafraid – actually compelled – to call it like it is. At one point he describes Heidi as a troglodyte. At the party to welcome home their long-lost sister he sees Heidi in the distance, ‘lost in the crowd, like a beribboned, beruffled mushroom. I walked towards her and she welcomed me with that sad flaying of her arms, her elbows close at her waist. I sat down next to her and she looked at me, head tilted, eyes squinting and mouth open: her creature look, I thought. Then she smiled, a wet bubble, making a convex lens, magnifying her gums…’ No pulling punches for Winston, though he loves his sister and acknowledges their connection. ‘We were syncopated, Heidi and I.’ His mother on the other hand – as Winston sees only too clearly – dresses Heidi like a doll, pets and patronises her, calls her special, and skilfully avoids accompanying her out into the world.

So, the young eye sees plainly what is before it, but – and this is the second property of the young eye – paradoxically, young people – new as they are – often misinterpret what they see. That misunderstanding can be entertaining and even unexpectedly instructive – particularly when the misunderstandings are linguistic (Our father who art in heaven, Harold be thy name). In Crash by Jerry Spinelli, the most sympathetic bully in all literature, John ‘Crash’ Coogan, works hard to make miserable the life of his neighbour Penn Webb, an only child dweeb with older, Quaker parents and an irrepressible sense of joy. Penn persistently misunderstands Crash’s inventive acts of meanness and in so doing helps Crash come to understand his own demons.

But misunderstanding can be disturbing, too, and disorienting, at times terrifying. In The Golden Day by Ursula Dubosarsky, dreamy Cubby, from whose point of view the story is told, who sees so much but only half-understands, is troubled by her friend Icara’s father, the Judge – partly because he doesn’t conform to her as-yet limited view of family life (it is Sydney, 1967)…but there are other things, too …

’Cubby was taken aback. The judge! This was not what she had imagined – a man in shorts and a striped shirt, with reading glasses on his nose. Whenever she’d pictured Icara’s father, she’d seen someone noble in a white wig, dressed in a red silken robe, like a kimono.

‘This is Cubby,’ said Icara, gesturing.

‘Hello Cubby,’ said the judge.

‘Hello,’ said Cubby.

Why was Icara’s father at home at four o’clock in the afternoon anyway? Surely fathers only came home as the sun was setting, with their black hats and tired faces, taking off their coats, removing their cufflinks. It reminded Cuffy of the fairy tale of the wild swans that Miss Renshaw had read them, although she had not been listening very closely. Wasn’t there something about how the brothers had to get back by twilight or they would change into swans? Something like that, thought Cubby, confused. In any case, it was hard to imagine the judge turning into a swan.

‘How are you, Icara,’ asked the judge.

‘Oh all right,’ said Icara, looking away.

And there it is, in that last line…Icara looks away. Cubby sees this, as she sees everything else, but she cannot sort the jumble of data in her head; she can’t interpret what she sees and hears. Which brings me to the third aspect that is present in so much of the best literature for children. Watching the adult world so carefully as they do and being so much at its mercy, and sometimes only half apprehending, children often become the unwitting or unwilling keepers – and reporters – of secrets.

Like fiction, like life. A great novel is of course a mirror held up to life – and this is no less true of a great children’s novel. Katherine Paterson is quite explicit about why she writes for and about children…it is because, she says – despite their prescience, their unclouded view of the world, (and of course their venality) – they are often invisible, and being fundamentally unnoticed, are then so vulnerable to misunderstanding and being misunderstood. So children’s writers must, she says, ‘become once more in our heart of hearts invisible children reaching out to the rest of the invisible children in our world.’ Invisible people of all ages and stripes, I would say.

The honing of a young eye – a child’s eye view of the world – both prompts and assists that reaching out. I don’t have enough time to thoroughly canvass the great reachers-out. I’d love to talk at length about Milkweed, the story of a Jewish-Polish street child, watching and misunderstanding the strange business of the German invasion, a great party he thinks, made up of parades and soldiers, whom he walks behind, imitating their precise goose-steps. Or, Maphead, the story of a half-alien, half-human teenager who comes to live in English suburbia and enjoys the eccentricity and unexpected sweetness of the ordinary man and woman. But why do they leave babies to sleep alone? Maphead asks himself, and decides that he must bear witness to the baby’s lonely night-time sleep. He sits beside the cot, watching and pondering the puzzle of human life. Or The Cartoonist,

*------- where Alfie survives his feckless family’s lifestyle by holing up in his attic room and drawing cartoons that report the unvarnished truth about his home and community. Or, The One and Only Ivan – read that if you read no other! A story of captivity and the solace of art and friendship, as narrated by a silverback gorilla, who patiently waits out his days inside a bleak circus mall in the middle of the Nevada desert.

I’m fairly sure that, any librarians and teachers aside, most of you won’t have heard of, much less read, most of the books I’ve mentioned. It’s possible, too, that most of you won’t have read many of the finest and lasting works of New Zealand children’s literature – I’ll throw a handful at you –The Keeper by Barry Faville; The Other Side of Silence by Margaret Mahy; Peri by Penelope Todd; The Fat Man by Maurice Gee Calling the Gods by Jack Lasenby; A visit to the orchards of heaven by Anthony Holcroft, Thor’s Tale by Janice Marriott, The Loblolly Boy by Jim Norcliffe Eating Plums in Bed, Ticket to the Sky Dance, Star Bright and the Dream Eater, and Hunter, all by Joy Cowley. This isn’t a rebuke, it’s just a recognition of the strange bifurcation that exists in the literature of any Anglophone country: though questing children stray often into putative ‘grownup’ literary territory, adults, other than those in the business, as it were, seldom breach the uplands of children’s literature.

There are many reasons for this, not least a persistently low expectation of children, what they’re capable of reading and understanding, and a concomitant assumption that their literature must therefore be simplistic in its subject, lexicon, philosophical reach and psychological underpinnings. Not so! – as I hope some of the foregoing extracts suggest. But the truth is, the bulk of the last century’s extraordinary outpouring of children’s literature – that world of wonder where the young eye tirelessly prospects – remains a secret from most adult readers.

News from that world filters through from time to time – though the substantive examples of the literature are occluded by noisier, commercial, or series offerings, which are the books that most adults know and that to them represent writing for children. I have no argument with those books; they have their place. I was devoted to every one of the 40 Bobbsey Twin series when I was seven & eight. But I long to move beyond the great wall of surface sound that dogs the children’s book world – and make no mistake, as a consequence of the Harry Potter phenomenon, books for children are now decidedly a commodity, with all the attendant trials of commodification. I would rather barrack for the quietly brilliant and often little known books, the ones that explore the world through a child’s forensic eye and offer the full literary arsenal: the wisdom, challenge, breadth, linguistic stretch, character nuance, and moral complexity found in all enduring literature.

I’ll finish with a beaut homegrown story, one with wonder and the young eye front and centre. I wish I’d written it – but it’s by Renata Hopkins, one of 46 New Zealand contributors in Annual 2, a miscellany of stories, poems, non-fiction, art, comics, how tos, and sly fictions masquerading as malarky.

Susan Paris and I have edited two of these Annuals. We commissioned all the content, feeling this was the best way to create a miscellany with a variety of forms, settings, moods, experiences, and that offered something for as many reading and looking tastes as possible. Above all, we wanted the Annuals to suggest that writing for children can be limber, surprising, sophisticated, subtle, and can invite many, many readings.

We gave Renata the sparest of briefs – West Coast, 1870s, 12-year-old girl. Perhaps a travellers’ inn – but we were very confident she’d return something uniquely her own, and so she did. I’m sure you’ll see great work from Renata Hopkins in the future.

The story opens with a painting by Star Gossage and is called Mud Prayer.

(This story can be found on p96 of Annual 2, edited by Susan Paris & Kate De Goldi; published by Annual Ink. Annual 2 can be bought online at www.annualannual.com/shop/ or from your nearest good bookseller.)

Books mentioned, or quoted from, in this talk

Selected Poems by Jenny Bornholdt; Victoria University Press, 2016

Dear Genius; the letters of Ursula Nordstrum edited by Leonard Marcus; HarperCollins, 2000

A Martian Sends a Postcard Home by Craig Raine; Oxford University Press, 1985 (first published 1980)

‘The Alphabetics of Story’ by Jane Yolen, from a speech given at the SCBWI first National New York conference, January 2000; published at: www.janeyolen.com/the-alphabetics-of-story/

The Midnight Fox by Betsy Byars; Faber Children, 2014 (first published 1968)

The Diamond in the Window by Jane Langton; HarperTrophy, 2002 (first published 1962)

Stop the Train by Geraldine McCaughrean; Oxford University Press, 2001

Antonio S & the Mystery of Theodore Guzman by Odo Hirsch; Allen & Unwin, 1997

‘In search of Wonder’ from The Invisible Child; on reading and writing books for children by Katherine Paterson; Dutton, 2001

Don’t Tell the Grownups; the subversive power of children’s literature by Alison Lurie; Little, Brown and Company, 1990

Boys and Girls Forever; Children’s Classics from Cinderella to Harry Potter by Alison Lurie; Penguin Books, 2003

Father’s Arcane Daughter by EL Konigsburg; Alladin Paperbacks, 1999 (first published 1976)

Crash by Jerry Spinelli; Laurel Leaf, 2004 (first published 1996)

The Golden Day by Ursula Dubosarsky; Allen & Unwin, 2011

Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli; HarperTrophy, 2003

Maphead by Lesley Howarth; Catnip Publishing, 2011 (first published 1994)

Maphead 2 by Lesley Howarth; Walker Books, 1998

The Cartoonist by Betsy Byars; Puffin, 1987 (first published 1978)

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate; HarperCollins, 2012

The Keeper by Barry Faville; Oxford University Press, 1986

The Other Side of Silence by Margaret Mahy; Viking, 1995

Peri by Penelope Todd; Longacre, 2001

The Fat Man by Maurice Gee; Penguin Books, 1994

Calling the Gods by Jack Lasenby; HarperCollins, 2011

A visit to the Orchards of Heaven by Anthony Holcroft; Hazard Press, 1998

Thor’s Tale by Janice Marriott; HarperCollins, 2006

The Loblolly Boy by James Norcliffe; Longacre Press, 2009

Eating Plums in Bed by Joy Cowley; illustrated by Jenna Packer; Scholastic, 2001

Ticket to the Skydance by Joy Cowley; Viking, 1997

Starbright and the Dream Eater by Joy Cowley; Penguin, 1998

Hunter by Joy Cowley; Puffin Books, 2004

The Bobbsey Twins by ‘Laura Lee Hope’; Stratemeyer Syndicate, 1903-1979

NZ Bookshop Day is just around the corner on 27th October and Featherston Booktown is celebrating.

Three of the bookshops in Featherston have planned some terrific activities to mark the special day which encourages book lovers to shop local.

In association with Featherston Booktown, Messines Bookshop will present Championing Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones at 10.30am. Messines Bookshop will also be featuring war games throughout the day with well known gamers John Fletcher and Michael Studwick, exhibiting Star Wars Armada and Bolt Action. Local war games enthusiast and model maker, Warren Hart will be in the bookshop painting war games models and scenery.

For the Love of Books will showcase a Monster Investigation Project from 11am to 1.30pm which is ideal for kids between 7 and 14 years of age. Do they have what it takes to be a Monster Investigator? Sign them up for the hour-long Monster Project Workshop faclitated by monster expert Susan Wildblood. Places are limited to just 10 children so register in-store now or visit www.welovebooks.nz

See your creativity showcased in the local paper! Ferret Books is asking keen booklovers to write an opening line for a novel about bookshops on a card and then paste it into an album in the bookshop. Ferret Books will publish the best of the collection of opening lines in the local newspaper ‘The Featherston Phoenix’.

Visit www.booksellers.co.nz/nzbookshopday for more information about other activities for NZ Bookshop Day throughout New Zealand.

Did the victory of 1918 destroy our civilisation?

Featherston Booktown has announced an event to mark the centenary of the Armistice on 11 November, titled ‘In the Shadow of War’ which explores eminent historian, Paul Ham’s writings that “The victory of 1918 destroyed our civilisation. Nothing can make that worthwhile.”.

New Zealand did not escape unscathed. Of the 100,000 Kiwis who served in WW1, almost 17,000 were killed and 41,000 were wounded – a 58 percent casualty rate - and the Great War ushered in significant changes for our wider society which impacted families, the role of women and our sense of national identity.

The panel-style event of leading historians, will be moderated by distinguished NZ diplomat and co-Chair of the World War One Centenary History Project, Mr Gerald Hensley, at the Kiwi Hall, Featherston.

“We are pleased that Featherston Booktown is able to present this special event as part of the official Featherston Armistice Centenary programme and the eagerly anticipated unveiling of the Featherston Camp Sculpture,” said Mr Peter Biggs, Chair, Featherston Booktown.

“We have assembled a panel of leading historians who will discuss the significance of the year 1918 and the impact the war has had on New Zealand society.”

The three-person panel discussing the far reaching consequences of war for our country from 1918 to the present day, will comprise: Jane Tolerton - Wellington writer and co-founder of the WWI Oral History Archive; Neil Frances - the Wairarapa’s leading military and aviation historian; and John Crawford - the New Zealand Defence Force Historian.

‘In the Shadow of War’ will be held Sunday 11 November, 4.00pm - 5.15pm at the Kiwi Hall, Featherston. Tickets are $16 and available on Eventfinda or at the door.

About the Panellists

JANE TOLERTON: Jane Tolerton is a Wellington writer, author of the award-winning Ettie: A Life of Ettie Rout and the best-selling Convent Girls and other oral history books, including Sixties Chicks. She started the World War I Oral History Archive in 1987, with Nicholas Boyack, and is the co-author of In the Shadow of War and the author of An Awfully Big Adventure, both containing edited extracts from the interviews. Jane wrote Make Her Praises Heard Afar: New Zealand women overseas in World War I. Her latest book is But I Changed All That: ‘First’ New Zealand women. In 2016 Jane was awarded an ONZM for services to history.

NEIL FRANCES: A lifelong resident of Wairarapa, Neil’s grandfather and father were war time members of the NZ Division and 2nd NZ Division respectively, but Neil’s only military connection was with the Air Training Corps in the 1960s. He has had over 50 years of reading military history, especially of the 20th century, split fairly evenly between land, sea and air forces and the last 31 years of working life was in the library and archive worlds. Over the last ten years, much of his time at the Wairarapa Archive has been spent on WW1 research and projects. Since 2005 Neil has published five books covering aspects of Wairarapa military history: Ketchil: a NZ pilot’s war in Asia and the Pacific (2005); Things have been pretty lively: The Great War diary of Melve King (with Doug King) (2008); and Safe Haven: the untold story of NZ’s largest ever military camp, Featherston 1916-1919 (2012); A Long, Long Trail: marching over the Rimutaka Hill, 1915-1918 (2015); and A Rifle and a Camera: Wairarapa soldiers photograph the Great War (2017).

JOHN CRAWFORD: John Crawford is the New Zealand Defence Force Historian and has written on many aspects of the history of the New Zealand Armed Forces and defence policy. Currently, he is working on an organisational history of the New Zealand expeditionary Force in the First World War. His major publications include: The Territorials: The history of the Territorial and Volunteer Forces of New Zealand, co-authored with Peter Cooke (2011); The Devil’s Own War, The First World War Diary of Brigadier-General Herbert Hart (2008); New Zealand’s Great War: New Zealand, the Allies and the First World War, co-edited with Ian McGibbon (2007), To Fight for the Empire: An Illustrated History of New Zealand and the South African War, 1899–1902 (1999) and Kia Kaha: New Zealand in the Second World War (2000).

About the Moderator

GERALD HENSLEY: South Wairarapa resident, Gerald Hensley, has had a distinguished career as one of New Zealand’s top public servants. He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1958 and served in Samoa, at the United Nations, the Commonwealth Secretariat and Washington DC, and in 1976 was High Commissioner in Singapore. In 1980 he became Head of the Prime Minister's Department where he served under both the Muldoon and Lange governments. He subsequently served as Coordinator of Domestic and External Security and as Secretary of Defence. After retirement in 1999, he published three books on New Zealand's diplomatic history, including Final Approaches, a volume of memoirs. Gerald is co-chair of the World War One Centenary History Project and is involved with publishing 14 books on New Zealand’s part in the First World War.

Featherston Booktown’s success has been recognised by the International Organisation of Booktowns (IOB).

Last week, the IOB has voted unanimously to make Featherston Booktown a full member of the global organisation, joining 21 other full member Booktowns, stretching across Europe, Asia and Australia.

Gunnel Ottersten, President of the IOB said: “The IOB has observed with great interest the successful growth of Featherston Booktown over the last four years. The Featherston Booktown Board of Trustees and the Featherston community have done a fantastic job taking Featherston Booktown forward to its current impressive stage – and the IOB voted unanimously to make Featherston Booktown a full member of the IOB.”

Peter Biggs, Chair of the Featherston Booktown Board of Trustees said: “This is a proud moment for Featherston and recognition of the commitment and generosity of the entire Featherston community – who have been 100 percent behind Featherston Booktown from day one.

“Full membership of the IOB will give Featherston the opportunity to promote itself internationally as a Booktown and add significant value and innovation to all of the other Booktowns around the world. We have a close working relationship with Clunes Booktown in Victoria, Australia – and we have the first Trans-Tasman Booktown summit later this year in Featherston. Now, Featherston is globally connected and has an international voice.”

A Booktown is a small rural town or village in which second–hand and antiquarian bookshops are concentrated. Most Booktowns have developed in villages of historic interest or of scenic beauty. Featherston now has six bookshops and the annual Featherston Booktown Festival attracts over 4,000 visitors every year. In 2018 and 2019, Featherston Booktown will have a programme running throughout the year.

The concept was initiated by Richard Booth of Hay–on–Wye in Wales. The Hay–on–Wye Literature Festival now attracts over 80,000 visitors across ten days in May-June every year.

“The Booktown concept has proven internationally to create a platform for community engagement and reinvigoration that leads to growth and prosperity for the wider local region. It is one of the most successful new tourism developments internationally and it is being followed in many countries around the world”, Peter Biggs said.

The fifth Featherston Booktown Festival will take place over the weekend of 10-12 May 2019.

ENDS

Acclaimed writer and artist - and Featherston resident, Sam Duckor-Jones, has joined the Featherston Booktown Board of Trustees.

Sam Duckor-Jones is a published poet, with his first volume of poetry, People from the Pit Stand Up being greeted with positive reviews and sales.

He is a graduate of Victoria University of Wellington and the International Institute of Modern Letters. In 2017, he was awarded the prestigious Biggs Poetry Prize.

Sam Duckor-Jones is also a sculptor and his sculptures are in high demand by both collectors and corporates.

“A large number of highly talented creative young people have chosen to call Featherston home and we were keen to tap into that energy and talent for Featherston Booktown,” said Peter Biggs, Chair of The Featherston Booktown Board of Trustees.

“Sam will not only bring the invaluable perspective of a writer and artist to the Featherston Booktown year-round programme, he is also deeply connected to, and respected by, the literary community - which is also a huge advantage to Featherston Booktown.”

Sam Duckor-Jones said: “I’m very excited about having the opportunity to contribute to the on-going success of Featherston Booktown. I hope that, as a Trustee, I can bring new ideas and innovation to Booktown to keep it constantly refreshed and surprising.”

The fifth Featherston Booktown Festival will take place over the weekend of 10-12 May 2019.

A rare first edition of Cartier Bresson’s Decisive Moment, Edin Blyton first editions, rare books on railway and military history, will be among the treasures on booksellers’ stalls at Featherston Booktown Saturday and Sunday 12-13 May.

There will be thousands of books across the widest spectrum available, appealing to everyone from children to collectors. Prices will range from $10 to $1,500 for the rarest. Fourteen bookstalls will be set up in the ANZAC Hall including five of the Featherston Bookshops that will also have their doors open.

A “rarish fat book” of Mrs Beaton’s Cookery Book will be among a wide selection of cook books available from the Featherston Country Cooking School stall in the ANZAC Hall. Aside from The Beresson, The Featherston Ferret, will have issue #3 of “the acutely angled Geomentry Journal and other editions of quality and collectability.

Featherston’s historic connection with railways, inspires antiquarian and rare book seller G T Carter Transport, of Whanganui to list James Cowan’s The Romance of Rail # 1 The Main.

Described as “probably the definitive work on the topdressing industry” Janic Geelen’s The Topdressers inclusive of black & white and colour photos, drawings, cartoons and old adverts signed by author at $450.00 will appeal to the dedicated collector of New Zealand’s rural history.

Hedley’s Books of Masterton will be showcasing a strong Wairarapa written and published range of both new and second hand.

First editions of the Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War including a rare copy of the 28th Maori Battalion (Arty Bees Books) as well as Crete by Dan Davin (Messines books : Military History) are also packed on their way to the ANZAC Hall.

Mr Feather’s Den will be featuring a set of Seven Arts volumes covering the period from November 1959 to October 1961. Each “bi-monthly publication combines six separate magazines - Art and Artists, Books and Bookmen, Dance and Dancers, Films and Filming, Music and Musicians, Plays and Players, and Records and Recording.”

Also from Arty Bees, Hausch-Bruno-et-al’s Culinary Chronicles covering Hong Kong, Italy and California, New York and Paris, South East Asia and Spain will feature.

A first edition of the fascinating book Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women, by the wonderfully eccentric stage magician, actor and writer, Ricky Jay will be on Loco Coffee & Books stall as well as a 1977 edition of Alister Taylor’s C.F. Goldie: Famous Maori leaders of New Zealand. Bob Stevens, USA, flew almost every US fighter in the World War 2 but retiring from the Air Force he concentrated full time on cartooning. His book of aviation cartoons There I was….”25 years will also be on Loco’s table.

A.G. Bagnall’s rare Wairarapa book will be available from Tinakori Books along with several Darwin books, including some editions from the 19th century. Serious collectors will also be interested in a range of pre-1840 books on New Zealand, e.g. Craik’s The New Zealanders, Cruise’s Journal of a 10 Months Residence in New Zealand and books by Polack and Augustus Earle.

In Darkest Africa Or The Quest Rescue and Retreat Of Emin Governor Of Equatoria Vol IIby Henry M. Stanley 1890, available for $150 is one of a number of 1st edition books to be on the tables of Dave Adams Books. Hand-Coloured New Zealand (The Photographs of Whites Aviation) by Peter Alsop, The Autobiography of Joan Sutherland, signed by herself, will be among several first editions signed by the authors including, Salman Rushdie.

For the Love of Books will have the Enid Blyton first edition and other children’s books and an extensive range of quality general titles.

Last year, Spies Books “were in the very beginning of our journey and we only had one book at our stall. Weirdo was Ben's first book; he wrote when he was nine. We self-published it to reward and recognise his passion for writing. Ben never stops writing, so since then, we have launched The Magic Pencil, a story about a school boy who finds a magic pencil on his way to school - anything he draws comes to life.”

Further into books for children and young adults, will be a rare First edition Biggles from Bear Flag books from Masterton, plus 1960's Pan edition Bonds, fifties and sixties pulp fiction and first edition novels and a swag of “gorgeous” vintage children’s' books, plus a special children's edition of 'Blind Date with a Book'.

Internationally renowned antiquarian Wellington bookseller, John Quilter will be brining books and pamphlets on NZ politics and history, fine literary tombs and books on the lower North island.

The bookstalls will be open from 10am to 4pm Saturday 12 and Sunday 13, May.

Monster hunts, Playshop Fairy Tales, Teddy Bear Adventures and Code Cups are part of an extensive children’s programme during this month’s Featherston Booktown, a three-day celebration of all things to do with books and reading.

The fourth annual Booktown, which opens on Friday 11th May, has a special emphasis on encouraging children to let their imagination run wild and to pick up a book or a pencil. Of the 25 events being held over the three days, 10 are aimed at children or young adults and range from an illustrative monster workshop and hunt through to a teddy bear adventure drawing workshop.

There is also a contribution of a $15 voucher to all primary school students in Featherston that may then be used at any of the bookshops in Featherston with the aim to encourage reading as well as a children’s drawing competition promoted through local primary schools.

Featherston Booktown Patron, Ms Joy Cowley ONZ, world-famous children’s author and an active supporter of Featherston Booktown since its inception says it’s vital to keep children interested in reading.

“I’ve known of intelligent young adults who have failed tertiary education because they have not developed the necessary reading speed and comprehension,” she says. When children acquire a reading habit, they also gain a “reading fitness” important for their future.”

Programme Director, Vanessa-Jayne Hunt is proud this year’s book festival has such a diverse children focused programme.

“We are very excited about this year’s programme. Featherston Booktown 2018 has attracted some “must see” literary figures and some terrific new inclusions such as how to invest in literature and collect books. There is also emphasis on activities for the little ones to ignite their interest in the written word.”

She says having the Booktown Trust give every Featherston primary school child a $15 voucher redeemable at For the Love of Books, Featherston Ferret, Messines Bookshop, Loco Coffee & Books and Mr Feather’s Den is something very tangible for the community.

The fourth annual Featherston Booktown opens on Friday May 11th with the popular Fish ‘n’ Chip Supper at ‘Rose & Smith’ at the Tauherenikau Racecourse. This event includes an after-dinner speech by acclaimed writer and reviewer, Kate De Goldi who writes fiction for all ages.

The following two days will delight book-lovers with a wide variety of events presented by national and local literary personalities and an eclectic collection of second hand books will be for sale, in pride of place next to new book sellers.

View the full Featherston Booktown programme online at www.booktown.org.nz or email info@booktown.org.nz. Tickets for Booktown will be onsale via www.eventfinda.co.nz

Who said romance is dead?

Certainly not Mary Scott, who was one of the first women to write romantic comedies firmly grounded in New Zealand rural life.

Scott's phenomenally successful novels about life on a farm in the backblocks of New Zealand will be talked about during May’s fourth annual Featherston Booktown, a three-day literary festival celebrating everything about books and reading being held in the south Wairarapa township from May 11th – 13th.

Literary critic and historian Lydia Wevers, ONZM

(pictured left), will give a captivating talk about Scott’s famous novels Breakfast at Six and Dinner Doesn't Matter, and discuss the things Kiwis love about country life. Weavers is an authority on the issue with her area of scholarship in New Zealand and Australian literature. Several of her books have focused on early New Zealand travel writing and writers and she has also edited a huge range of literary anthologies, including, Goodbye to Romance: Stories by Australian and New Zealand Women 1930s –1980s.

Her own book, Reading on the Farm, which utilises the Victorian library on Brancepeth Station in the Wairarapa, its staff, and its customers as a means to reflect upon the significance of books, reading, and intellectual life in colonial New Zealand, was published to great acclaim in 2010.

Mary Scott: The Rural Romantic is one of 25 literary events being held during this year’s Featherston Booktown, which will open with the popular Fish ‘n’ Chip Supper on May 11th at ‘Rose & Smith’ at the Tauherenikau Racecourse. This event includes an after-dinner speech by acclaimed writer and reviewer, Kate De Goldi who writes fiction for all ages.

De Goldi has been a recipient of The Michael King Fellowship and has won the New Zealand Post Children’s Book of the Year twice. Her most recent novel, From the Cutting Room of Barney Kettle, won the Esther Glen Medal at the 2016 NZ Children’s Book Awards. Featherston Booktown Patron, Ms Joy Cowley ONZ, world-famous children’s author and an active supporter of Featherston Booktown since its inception will also be in attendance.

For more information visit www.booktown.org.nz or email info@booktown.org.nz.

Tickets for Booktown will be onsale via www.eventfinda.co.nz

Details: Mary Scott: The Rural Romantic

When: Saturday May 12th, 11.00am – 12.00pm

Where: The Dining Room at The Royal Hotel, 22 Revans Street, Featherston

Entry: Koha

A special workshop that encourages people to explore their mind as well as the outdoors will be a highlight during this month’s Featherston Booktown, a three-day celebration of all things to do with books and reading.

Wairarapa based author Paul Adamson (pictured left), whose successful book The Beginner’s Book to Hunting and Fishing in New Zealand has been widely read by outdoor enthusiasts all around the country, will host the workshop on Sunday, 13th May at the Royal Hotel in Featherston. He will talk about how people can get started to explore the great outdoors, where they can go to find information and discuss the rules, regulations and laws around hunting and fishing. He will explain why a balance between ethical considerations, safety and “just plain having fun” needs to be considered in New Zealand.

Adamson will also provide a straight-forward, easy to understand journey through each chapter in his book and briefly examine the steps in writing such a book. He has over 30 years’ experience working as an educator, a principal and a counsellor, and is currently in charge of an alternative education school in the Wairarapa,

This workshop is one of 25 events being held as part of the fourth annual Featherston Booktown, which opens on Friday May 11th with the popular Fish ‘n’ Chip Supper at ‘Rose & Smith’ at the Tauherenikau Racecourse.

The Fish n Chip Supper includes an after-dinner speech by acclaimed writer and reviewer, Kate De Goldi who writes fiction for all ages. De Goldi has been a recipient of The Michael King Fellowship and has won the New Zealand Post Children’s Book of the Year twice. Her most recent novel, From the Cutting Room of Barney Kettle, won the Esther Glen Medal at the 2016 NZ Children’s Book Awards. Featherston Booktown Patron, Ms Joy Cowley ONZ, world-famous children’s author and an active supporter of Featherston Booktown since its inception will also be in attendance.

Featherston Booktown Trust Chairman, Peter Biggs said the event has come a long way in its four years.

“We have secured solid financial backing from local authorities, national and local trusts and our community, both individuals and local businesses. As always, we deeply appreciate the whole-hearted support of the people of Featherston, especially our wonderful volunteers,” he said

For more information visit www.booktown.org.nz or email info@booktown.org.nz.

Tickets for Booktown will be onsale via www.eventfinda.co.nz

DETAILS:

Paul Adamson – Springboard Into The Outdoors

When: Sunday 11.00am – 12.00pm

Where: The Dining Room at The Royal Hotel, 22 Revans Street

Entry: Koha

Leading broadcaster John Campbell (pictured) will interview one of New Zealand’s most distinguished public servants, Gerald Hensley, during next month’s Featherston Booktown, a three-day literary festival celebrating everything to do with books and reading.

In conversation with Campbell, Hensley will describe fascinating encounters with world leaders and explore memories of the personalities of former New Zealand Prime Ministers. At the event, to be held at the Featherston RSA on Saturday, 12th May, the interview will trace Hensley’s career which began in 1958 when he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and served in Samoa before holding positions at the United Nations, in Washington DC and in 1976 when he was High Commissioner in Singapore. In 1980 he became Head of the Prime Minister's Department where he served under both the Muldoon and Lange governments before serving as Coordinator of Domestic and External Security and as Secretary of Defence. After retirement in 1999, Hensley published three books on New Zealand's diplomatic history, including 'Final Approaches', a volume of memoirs. He now grows wine in Martinborough.

This will be one of two events that Campbell is involved in – the other being True Stories (Told Live) which he is compering and will be the first time it is held in the Wairarapa. Brought to the region by the New Zealand Book Council, True Stories (Told Live) is tipped to be exhilarating and entertaining, featuring six guests who will entertain audiences with surprising, dramatic, funny, frightening and moving true stories.

Featherston Booktown’s storytellers, who have eight minutes each to speak on a theme, include Catherine Robertson, best-selling novelist, reviewer and commentator; Tom Scott, satirist, cartoonist, playwright, author; Emily Writes, popular writer, reviewer and blogger; Chris Tse, poet, blogger, actor; Victor Rodger, playwright, provocateur, actor and Paul Adamson, writer, hunter, fisher and teacher.

True Stories (Told Live) will be held on Saturday 12th May at The Royal Hotel in Featherston.

These two events will formally be unveiled during tomorrow night’s official programme launch for the fourth annual Featherston Booktown.

This year’s literary celebration features 25 events and will kick-off with the popular Featherston Booktown Fish ‘n’ Chip Supper on May 11th at ‘Rose & Smith’ at the Tauherenikau Racecourse. This event includes an after-dinner speech by acclaimed writer and reviewer, Kate De Goldi who writes fiction for all ages. De Goldi has been a recipient of The Michael King Fellowship and has won the New Zealand Post Children’s Book of the Year twice. Her most recent novel, From the Cutting Room of Barney Kettle, won the Esther Glen Medal at the 2016 NZ Children’s Book Awards. Featherston Booktown Patron, Ms Joy Cowley ONZ, world-famous children’s author and an active supporter of Featherston Booktown since its inception will also be in attendance.

Featherston Booktown Trust Chairman, Peter Biggs said the event has come a long way in its four years.

“We have secured solid financial backing from local authorities, national and local trusts and our community, both individuals and local businesses. As always, we deeply appreciate the whole-hearted support of the people of Featherston, especially our wonderful volunteers,” he said

For more information visit www.booktown.org.nz or email info@booktown.org.nz.

Tickets for Booktown will be onsale via www.eventfinda.co.nz

***

Details:

Gerald Hensley - Presidents & Prime Ministers I Have Known

Saturday 12 May - 2.30pm to 3.30pm

RSA Hall, Fox Street, Featherston

$19.90

True Stories (Told Live)

Saturday 12 May - 6.30 to 9.30pm

The Royal Hotel, Featherston

$19.90

Fish ’n’ Chip Supper with Kate De Goldi

Friday 11 May - 6.30 to 10.30pm

Rose & Smith, Tauherenikau Racecourse

$45

Do something different this Mother’s Day (Sunday 13 May) with mum that she’ll remember forever. Treat mum to a ‘Devonshire Tea’ at Featherston Booktown and enjoy a performance of Playshop Fairy Tales, before taking time to leisurely browse the eclectic selection of books, both new and old, at Featherston’s Kiwi Hall located within the ANZAC Hall complex 62 Bell Street.

Country Tea & Cakes, a regular feature at Booktown, will be back again this year proudly supported by The Country Cooking School and a host of volunteers co-ordinated by Mrs Mary Biggs.

“We’ve assembled the talent of several serious home cooks from around the Wairarapa to present delicious home-made cakes, scones and biscuits accompanied by freshly brewed tea and coffee,” said Mary.

“We’re delighted that Wendy Campbell will be making her famous cheese scones again this year. Freshly baked on site, few can resist the allure of Wendy’s scones!”

The special Mother’s Day Devonshire Teas are $15 per person and include your choice of scone (sweet or savoury), finger sandwiches and a delectable home-made slice.

In addition to the Devonshire teas, visitors to Booktown can also enjoy a tea/coffee on the go for $3 or sit down and enjoy their cuppa with a choice of cake, cupcake, savoury scone, slice or two sandwiches for $7.

On Mother’s Day visitors to Country Tea & Cakes at the Kiwi Hall will delight in two Playshop Fairy Tales performances at 11am and 2pm respectively. Expect playful interactions through theatre, storytelling and improvisation. It’s spontaneous, thrilling theatre and something the kids, grandkids, mums and grandmothers will enjoy together building those precious memories.

The proceeds from Country Tea & Cakes is donated to the Featherston Booktown Trust to enable continued literary events for the community.

The fourth annual Featherston Booktown will be held on the weekend 11 - 13 May, 2018 and features ‘the most exciting programme yet’.

For more information visit www.booktown.org.nz or email info@booktown.org.nz

The fourth annual Featherston Booktown will be held 11 - 13 May, 2018 and promises ‘the most exciting programme yet’ according to Featherston Booktown Trust Chairman, Peter Biggs.

The annual three day literary celebration featuring 25 events, is expected to draw 3,000 people to the Wairarapa, and will kick-off with the popular Featherston Booktown Fish ‘n’ Chip Supper, now a tradition and which attracts over 200 people, on 11 May at ‘Rose & Smith’ at the Tauherenikau Racecourse.

The South Wairarapa is home to several successful authors, poets and literary scholars and Featherston is known for its array of second hand book shops. At the last count, there are now six book shops in the vibrant town.

“A book festival seems like the perfect match and complements an already colourful calendar of vineyard, agriculture, music and community-themed events in the Wairarapa,” said Programme Director, Vanessa-Jayne Hunt.

Featherston is about to make its case to the international organisation of Booktowns to become an official Booktown. There are 22 official Booktowns in the world, spanning 18 countries.

“By definition a Booktown is a small rural town or village, close to major cities, in which secondhand bookshops are concentrated. Their residents curate book themed events - selling, writing, reading, illustrating, printing, making and publishing them.” she added.

The Featherston Booktown weekend will delight book-lovers with a wide variety of events presented by national and local literary personalities and an eclectic collection of second hand books will be for sale, in pride of place next to new book sellers.

Featherston Booktown Patron, Ms Joy Cowley ONZ, world-famous children’s author and an active supporter of Featherston Booktown since its inception, remarked

“We are very excited about this year’s programme. Featherston Booktown 2018 has attracted some “must see” literary figures and some terrific new inclusions such as how to invest in literature and collect books. There is also emphasis on activities for the little ones to ignite their interest in the written word.”

The Featherston Booktown Trust has mapped out a strategic plan which aims to develop a year-round calendar of book-related events.

“Now in our fourth year, Booktown has come a long way. We have secured solid financial backing from local authorities, national and local trusts and our community, both individuals and local businesses. As always, we deeply appreciate the whole-hearted support of the people of Featherston, especially our wonderful volunteers,” said Featherston Booktown Trust Chairman, Peter Biggs.

For more information visit www.booktown.org.nz or email info@booktown.org.nz

ENDS

FEATHERSTON BOOKTOWN ON STAGE AT 2018 NEW ZEALANDER OF THE YEAR AWARDS

Featherston Booktown – and Featherston – were among many individuals and communities recognised at the New Zealander of the Year Awards, held in Auckland last night.

The Featherston Booktown Festival, which started three years ago, received a Certificate of Achievement from Awards Patron, Rt Hon. Jim Bolger ONZ.

The Chair of the Featherston Community Board, Robyn Ramsden, was called on stage to receive the Certificate from Mr Bolger and said that it “was a very proud evening for Featherston Booktown and for Featherston.”

Peter Biggs, Chair of Featherston Booktown, who was also at the inspirational black-tie event, said that receiving the Certificate is “a tribute to the people and the community of Featherston.

“Featherston Booktown is truly owned by the people of Featherston – and the Featherston community has enthusiastically embraced Featherston Booktown since the first Festival in 2015,” he said.

“The Certificate of Achievement is also great recognition of Featherston resident, Lincoln Gould (who owns Messines Books – one of six book shops which have sprung up in Featherston since 2015), who came up with the idea of Featherston Booktown.

“Lincoln now deservedly carries the title of Founding Kaumatua of Featherston Booktown.”

Peter Biggs went on:

“Every year, the locals of Featherston provide an army of volunteers to help organise and run the Annual Featherston Booktown Festival.

“In addition, local donors have contributed money to Featherston Booktown and its aims, including one Featherston-based benefactor who donates a significant amount of money to ensure that every young person in the Featherston community receives a free book voucher to buy books both during and after the Featherston Booktown Festival. This voucher scheme has become extremely popular and is an example of how Featherston Booktown has inspired community engagement.

“Featherston Booktown is managed, planned and driven by a Board of Trustees who are all locals and who give huge amounts of their time and energy unselfishly.”

Peter Biggs said that Featherston Booktown is now a national phenomenon and a stand-out event in the calendar of the Wellington region. Other events, including book launches for local authors, are held at other times during the year.

The Featherston Booktown Trust is currently planning this year’s Featherston Booktown Festival (it takes place on 11 – 13 May) and, according to Peter Biggs, “this year’s programme is incredibly exciting.”

Robyn Ramsden, said she felt “very honoured to receive the Certificate of Achievement on behalf of Featherston Booktown.

“Featherston Booktown is one of many initiatives in Featherston which is making the town incredibly vibrant and a great place to live, work and visit.”

The Patron of Featherston Booktown, acclaimed writer Joy Cowley, said that “we didn’t need to be told that Featherston is a fantastic little town: but it’s gratifying that New Zealand knows it too.”

Photo: Robyn Ramsden (Chair of the Featherston Community Board) receiving recognition award

JOY COWLEY BECOMES PATRON OF FEATHERSTON BOOKTOWN

World-acclaimed New Zealand writer and Featherston resident, Joy Cowley, has taken up the role of Patron of Featherston Booktown.

Joy Cowley, is a prolific, widely-published and much celebrated writer of fiction for adults and children. She began her career writing short stories and novels before moving into the realm of children’s literature. Joy has published numerous novels, as well as short-stories that have featured in journals, anthologies and book-length collections. She has written a remarkable range of children’s books and stories, often illustrated by renowned artists. Joy was made a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to children’s literature in 2005 and was awarded a Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement for Fiction in 2010. She is “Kaumatua” to the New Zealand Society of Authors.

“I have watched with interest how Featherston Booktown has grown over the last three years – and how it has done so much for the Featherston community and Featherston’s profile,” Joy Cowley said.

“I’m very excited – and honoured – by this role and I’m looking forward to supporting the Featherston Booktown Trust as much as I can by suggesting ideas for Featherston Booktown and making connections between Featherston Booktown and writers and speakers.”

Interim-Chair of the Featherston Booktown Trust, Peter Biggs, said that the Trust was delighted that Joy Cowley had accepted the role of Patron.

“We are determined that Featherston Booktown becomes a nationally and internationally renowned phenomenon and having a Patron of national and international stature like Joy Cowley is a huge boost for Featherston Booktown and our ambition.

“We are very grateful to Joy for accepting this role.”

ENDS

Peter Biggs: Interim-Chair, Featherston Booktown

021 308 828

Vanessa-Jayne Hunt: Programme Director, Featherston Booktown

021 021 09883

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Prominent event manager and publicist, Vanessa-Jayne Hunt has been appointed as the new Programme Director for Featherston Booktown.

She succeeds the inaugural Programme Director, Kate Mead, who has organised the last three outstandingly successful Featherston Booktown festivals and is now on the Board of Trustees of Featherston Booktown.

Wairarapa-based, Mrs Hunt has a strong track record in events management, having organised and contributed to a number of events in the region, including the Wings Over Wairarapa event since 2015.

With facilities management and a strong focus on corroborative planning a crucial function for Wings Over Wairarapa, being part of the Wings team enabled Mrs Hunt to work extensively on correlating significant supplier relationships to achieve a positive affiliation at each event.

She has also had key roles with the Young Enterprise Trust, the Wairarapa Chamber of Commerce and Toast Martinborough.

Interim Chair of the Featherston Booktown Trust, Peter Biggs, said that the Trust was delighted that Mrs Hunt has accepted the Featherston Booktown Programme Director role.

“Vanessa-Jayne is an experienced event organiser and deeply committed to promoting the Wairarapa as a place of vibrancy and creativity. She is enthusiastic about the arts and the role they play in enriching communities. We are very confident that Vanessa-Jayne will build on the excellent platform established by Kate and the last three Featherston Booktown Festivals, and take the event to another level,” he said

Vanessa-Jayne Hunt said: “I have the highest respect for what Featherston Booktown has achieved in a very short time. I’m excited about the further potential of the Festival and am looking forward to working with the Featherston Booktown Trust and the Featherston and South Wairarapa community to make Featherston Booktown even more successful.”

Mrs Hunt takes up her role today (2 October 2017).

ENDS

For further information, please contact:

Peter Biggs (021 308 828)

Vanessa-Jayne Hunt (021 021 09883)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 18 September 2017 After three highly successful Featherston Booktown festivals, the Chair of the Featherston Booktown Trust and founder of the concept in New Zealand, Lincoln Gould, is retiring from the Board of Trustees. "I have seen Featherston Booktown grow from a brave idea to a highly successful annual event, attracting thousands of book lovers to Featherston and engaging positively with the local community," Mr Gould said. "As well, it's very gratifying that, with Featherston Booktown playing a key role, the town now has six thriving bookshops – and, possibly, one more to open shortly – which add to the current vibrancy and popularity of Featherston." Mr Gould said that he'd always wanted to "pass the baton on" when Featherston Booktown had been well and truly established as a key event in the calendar of the Wellington region. "It's got to that stage now. We had four thousand people at this year's Featherston Booktown - and a record number of booksellers. Plus the Fish and Chip Supper, which launches the Festival, was again sold out," he said. "There's still exciting growth and innovation potential for Featherston Booktown and I think a new Chair will bring new energy and ideas in terms of making that happen. "My day job is Chief Executive of Booksellers NZ – and retiring from the Trust will allow me to devote more time and attention to my weekend hobby, Messines Bookshop: Military History, which is one of the new Booktown bookshops in Featherston." Interim Featherston Booktown Trust Chair, Peter Biggs, paid tribute to Mr Gould. "Lincoln's been the driving force behind Featherston Booktown's success and the Trustees acknowledge all of his hard work and dedication to ensuring that the festival is firmly cemented into the brand of Featherston, the South Wairarapa and New Zealand as a whole. "We are delighted that Lincoln has accepted the role of "Founding Kaumatua" and that the Trust will be able to access his wisdom and guidance as we take Featherston Booktown into the future." Mr Biggs said that a new full-time Chair will be appointed as soon as possible. ENDS For further information, please contact: Peter Biggs Tel: 021 308 828

Sunday 14 August, 4pm

Kiwi Hall at the ANZAC Club, 62 Bell Street, Featherston

Andy Bearpark, probably Featherston’s newest resident author, will launch his modest book of memoirs in the second week of August in the small Wairarapa town he now calls home.

Bearpark came to live in Featherston via a circuitous route that has included (among other equally interesting places) Downing Street, the war torn areas of the Balkans and post-war Iraq.

As a key British figure in post-war Iraq in 2003, Bearpark was recently interviewed by Britain’s The Guardian newspaper in the wake of the release of the Chilcot report.

Bearpark is quoted in the Guardian article as saying, “After the event, I’d say it was wrong to have invaded because we didn’t have the faintest idea what we were doing. Blair was totally out of it … and Bush had made an immense mess of it.

“I worked for some stupendously stupid people in Iraq; I mean, being high-ranking people they were clever in a variety of ways, but stupid in they didn’t know what they were doing. It was totally dysfunctional.” In his book, Bearpark explains that what worried him so much was these people went back to extremely high positions in the US.”

Serendipity Rules – a brief history, is a small book of memoirs of Andy Bearpark’s 40-year career, including his time in Zimbabwe, 10 Downing Street, Montserrat, Bosnia and Kosovo, and Iraq, until his settling into his new life in Featherston where he will open a yoga retreat later this year.

Andy Bearpark will launch his book on Sunday, 14 August at 4pm in Featherston’s Kiwi Hall.

The launch of Bearpark’s book is the first of a regular series of Booktown events leading up to Featherston’s Booktown festival weekend 12-14 May 2017.

ENDS

Contact:

Kate Mead 027 513 1418

Note to editors:

A Booktown is a small rural town or village, close to major cities, in which secondhand and antiquarian bookshops are concentrated. Most Book Towns have developed in villages of historic interest and/or of scenic beauty. Their residents set up events around books - selling them, writing, reading, illustrating, printing, making and publishing them and are joined by booksellers from all over the country and some from further afield.

Lloyd Jones to open Featherston Booktown, Friday 12 May 2017

Renowned New Zealand author, Lloyd Jones will be the guest speaker at what has become the iconic Featherston Booktown Fish & Chips Supper kicking-off next year’s event on Friday 12 May 2017.

This follows hot on the heels of the successful launch of the 2016 event by Richard Taylor in May.

Featherston Booktown Festival has settled on the second weekend in May for at least the next three years, during which time a smorgasbord of bookish events will be offered.

After two successful Booktown festivals in 2015 and 2016, Featherston has been offered official recognition as a Full Member of the International Organisation of Booktowns.

Booktown Operations Director Kate Mead: “We are already deep into planning next year’s programme and are very honoured that Lloyd Jones has agreed so readily to be our Fish & Chips Supper speaker.”

“We are also well on the way to securing other key events for the weekend including the return for the second year of world famous children’s author, Joy Cowley.”

“Globally, most Booktowns have developed in small towns of historic interest, close to major cities. In 2017, historic Featherston’s links with the first world war will also be a feature with a focus on the battle for Messines Ridge in July 1917 – a victory for the New Zealand troops trained at Featherston”, says Mead.

As well as the planned attractions for the Booktown weekend event next year, Featherston Booktown Trust has mapped out a three year strategic plan to develop book-related infrastructure in the town and events covering the other 362 days of the year.

Trust Chair, Lincoln Gould says, “We are heavily engaged in seeking funding to build our capacity and hold events throughout the year that relate to the whole artefact of the book.”

“Approaches are being made for financial support from local authorities, community and national trusts and other charitable foundations. We have had wonderful contributions from individuals and service groups and we are also keen to further develop the very valuable relationships we have established with the local business community.”

Local feedback: “Booktown makes our community a better place to live.”

ENDS

Contacts:

Kate Mead 027 513 1418

Lincoln Gould 021 426 575

Note to editors:

A Booktown is a small rural town or village, close to major cities, in which secondhand and antiquarian bookshops are concentrated. Most Booktowns have developed in villages of historic interest and/or of scenic beauty. Their residents set up events around books - selling them, writing, reading, illustrating, printing, making and publishing them. Featherston Booktown is affiliated with the International Organisation of Booktowns www.booktown.net

MEDIA RELEASE

Richard Taylor and Joy Cowley to inspire

Two of New Zealand’s leading figures in the arts will headline next month’s Featherston Booktown in the Wairarapa, a three-day celebration of books, writers and literature.

Richard Taylor, a co-founder of the Weta companies in Wellington and co-owner of Weta Workshop and Pukeko Pictures, is the guest speaker at Booktown’s opening event on Friday, May 20th while children’s writer Joy Cowley will give readings and hold a special writers workshop over the weekend.

Featherston Booktown Director of Operations Kate Mead says having two of New Zealand’s “National Treasures” at the event is a major coup.

“We are absolutely delighted that both Richard Taylor and Joy Cowley will be speaking at Featherston Booktown. They are both pioneers in their respective fields and have provided inspiration to thousands all over the world. There’s no doubt they will inspire all those that attend Booktown next month … and leave a lasting legacy,” says Kate.

Richard has over 27 years’ experience as the design and effects supervisor at Weta Workshop and has been awarded five Oscars, four BAFTAs and numerous other achievements for Weta Workshop's success on such films as Lord of the Rings, King Kong, The Hobbit, Avatar and Elysium to name a few. He will be the guest speaker at The Fish and Chip Supper being held at Featherston’s ANZAC Hall on May 20th. The evening will feature a fun, sit-down Fish and Chip dinner and live music.

Joy Cowley, the award winning writer who has penned books for children's early reading programmes, picture books, adult novels as well as a memoir will give two readings at the Royal Hotel on May 21st and lead a three-hour Creative Writing Workshop for Adults at the Senior Citizens’ Hall on May 22nd. Her words will also be put to music created by composer Gareth Farr, during Scary Music at the Senior Citizens’ Hall. This will be performed by the New Zealand String Quartet.

“Joy now lives in Featherston and continues to write the most astonishing works,” says Kate. “She was recently described by American media as the ‘Elvis Presley’ of children’s books so to have her involvement at this level is incredible.”

The two-headliners will complement a full programme of events being held in the South Wairarapa township, an hour’s drive or train ride from Wellington. Over the weekend there will be booksellers and dealers from New Zealand and Australia selling second-hand and antiquarian books with stalls in the ANZAC Hall and along the streets of Featherston. A highlight of this is expected to be two Vintage Book Consultations, where people can bring in their old books to the Kiwi Hall and have them valued by an expert.

There is also a full programme aimed at children and young adults including three one-hour improvised theatre workshops for children based on their favourite literature; poetry readings and book readings by a who’s who of authors such as Kate De Goldi. In addition there will be talks that highlight Featherston’s heritage and strong ties with the railway, and a large focus on local writers with many discussing their works and giving readings.

This will be the second time Featherston Booktown has been held. The inaugural event was in 2015 after a team of motivated local residents brought the global concept of Booktown to the region. The team now includes Chair Lincoln Gould, CEO of Booksellers NZ; Peter Biggs, chair of the Wellington Regional Economic Development Agency; Mary Biggs, owner of the business Lavender’s Green and The Country Cooking School; photographer Pete Monk; Shelley Hancox (Rathkeale College) and Paul Broughton (C'est Cheese).

“Most Booktowns have developed in villages of historic interest or of scenic beauty, with the most well-known one being Hay-on-Wye in the beautiful Welsh Borders which each May brings together writers, poets, comedians and novelists together from around the world to debate and share stories and inspire visitors,” says Kate. “Former US President Bill Clinton famously declared Hay’s Festival as “the Woodstock of the mind”. We hope in time, that Featherston’s Booktown can do the same.”

ENDS

For more information please contact:

Kate Mead

Featherston Booktown

Director of Operations

0275 13 14 18

Featherston Booktown is to hold its next major event on 20-22 May next year, following the highly successful inaugural event In October 2015.

National and international second hard and antiquarian book sellers, renowned kiwi authors, book binders, illustrators, craft printers and other artisans will all be included in the next year’s programme according to Booktown Operations Director, Kate Mead.

“The community of Featherston were wonderful in the way they got behind this year’s first event, especially in decorating the town almost as a highly illustrated and colourful book.

“There is great enthusiasm from the people in the town to do it again – better and brighter - enhancing the town’s status as a Booktown and a destination for visitors.

“The feedback received from everyone involved, including the second hand and antiquarian booksellers, the local businesspeople and community was very positive and supportive of moving ahead with our strategy of establishing Featherston as a centre for the celebration of the Book as an artefact.

“We have decided to hold next year’s event in May earlier than this year, not only to have more settled weather hopefully, but also to align with Clunes Booktown in Victoria planned for 30 April – 1 May,” says Mead.

The significant connections Featherston has with the 1st World War and the development of Railways will background the events that are being planned.

“We hope to announce the main planks of our programme early in the New Year to ensure the widest possible publicity,” says Mead.

…..//…

Featherston Booktown is administered by the Featherston Booktown Charitable Trust Board.

For further information: Please contact

Operations Director Kate Mead 027 513 1418

Chair of Featherston Booktown Trust, Lincoln Gould 021 426 575.

From the Wairarapa News, 21 October:

"Featherston turned a new page at the weekend when it hosted New Zealand's first Booktown Festival. The event included a series of book and literary events attractiving book lovers from around the country."

A Booktown review from the regional newspaper.

For the full article, click here.

Great article from the DomPost about Booktown. For the full article, click here.

"Book-lovers are converging on Featherston this weekend for a new festival designed to help the historic Wairarapa town turn over a new leaf.It will become the first New Zealand town to host a "Booktown" festival – an international movement of small, rural towns where second-hand bookshops thrive and bookselling, writing, reading, illustrating, printing, making and publishing are celebrated."

Thanks for enjoying Featherston Booktown!

We expect this weekend, and many other events during the year, to help create a new, rich and enduring identity for Featherston.

So, we're grateful for your feedback. Please take a few minutes to fill out our survey, by clicking below. It's completely anonymous, but if you'd like to leave your details, you'll go into the draw for a Booktown bag of goodies.

To take the survey click here.

Cheers,

The Booktown Team

FEATHERSTON TO BECOME THE BOOKEND OF THE WAIRARAPA, 16-18 OCTOBER 2015

The first Featherston Booktown Festival will make the thriving South Wairarapa town “the bookend of the Wairarapa – and the Wellington region”, says Operations Director, Kate Mead.

Featherston is the first New Zealand town to become a member of the International Organisation of Booktowns and the first-ever Featherston Booktown Festival will be made up of a series of book and literary events shaped around the town over the weekend of 16-18 October.

“We’ve got some of New Zealand’s most renowned writers coming to the Booktown Festival,” says Kate Mead.

“They include Owen Marshall, Kate de Goldi [Kate: Can you please fill in more details here?]

“As well, given that we are commemorating the centenary of World War One, the WW1 theme will be strong. There are panel discussions on the subject with eminent writers and historians, including Dr Chris Pugsley, Professor Glyn Harper, Neil Frances and Jane Tolerton.

“There will also be performances of Forgotten Kiwi Songs of 1914-18.”

Kate Mead says that booksellers from around the country are travelling to Featherston for the Booktown Festival.

“We’re very excited that Professor John Arnold is attending from Melbourne to value private antiquarian books at Rare & Antique Bookshows.”

Lincoln Gould, CEO of Booksellers New Zealand and Chair of the Featherston Booktown Trust describes a Booktown as “a small rural town, close to major cities, in which antiquarian bookshops are concentrated. Most have developed in villages of historic interest and or scenic beauty. Their residents set up events around books – selling them, writing, reading, printing, making and publishing them.

“The first Booktown was Hay-on-Wye – which was set up in 1961. Now, Booktowns are around the world, from Europe to Malaysia, South Korea, Japan and Australia. The International Organisation of Booktowns binds the network of towns together.”

Lincoln Gould adds: “The Hay-on-Wye Booktown Festival in the UK and the Clunes Booktown Festival in Victoria, Australia, have become internationally famous and attract tens of thousands of book-loving visitors every year. Our ambition is that the Featherston Booktown Festival will be similarly renowned and popular.”

Pete Monk, a member of the Featherston Booktown Trust and Chair of Toast Martinborough describes Featherston as “a sleeping giant of creative expression in the Wairarapa."

“Most of us on the Trust have moved in to Featherston over the past twenty years. Something, not necessarily the same thing, drew us in. There are people here of immense creative ability and repute – writers, artists, musicians, artisans – all who want to see the town develop.”

Peter Biggs, who is also a member of the Featherston Booktown Trust and Chair of The New Zealand Book Council, says: “The Booktown movement is a shining example of the new way of thinking about culture and economic growth. It used to be that economic growth drove culture. Now, if you look around at the world’s most vibrant places, arts and culture are integral to sparking economic growth. If you can’t create jobs in the old way, when communities are socially struggling and even divided – that’s the time you should be investing in culture because you are then investing in tolerance, in diversity, in creativity and imagination. Arts and creativity are as much essential infrastructure as roads, drains and trains.”

“Featherston is long overdue to deliver on its potential,” says Pete Monk. “In the international context, the concept of Booktown has transformed communities. Our town is perfectly placed, ready and willing.”

For interviews & more information: kate@booktown.org.nz or call 0275 13 14 18