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Category: from the vaults

History Repeats [and Rewrites!] Itself…

History is a beautiful clusterfudge of odd characters, wacky narratives, and an unusual number of poisonings. As such, it’s only natural for historical events to provide a rich source of inspiration to writers who frankly can’t be having it with the modern day (that’s a general assumption, but I have faith – at least once a day I get angry at either a microwave or a traffic light so why wouldn’t other people have had it with our technological trappings as well?).

Enter: The Historical Retelling!

I know it sounds a little dry and dusty, but I can promise you that the books listed below are absolutely fat with intrigue, heart-racing romance, murderous intent, poison, old gods, and… cake? Have I piqued your interest yet?

If so, read on for more…


Gwen & Art are not in love / Croucher, Lex
“Gwen, the quick-witted Princess of England, and Arthur, future lord and general gadabout, have been betrothed since birth. Unfortunately, the only thing they can agree on is that they hate each other. When Gwen catches Art kissing a boy and Art discovers where Gwen hides her diary (complete with racy entries about Bridget Leclair, the kingdom’s only female knight), they become reluctant allies.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

My contrary Mary / Hand, Cynthia
“Welcome to Renaissance France, a place of poison and plots, of beauties and beasts, of mice and … queens? Mary is the queen of Scotland and the jewel of the French court. Except when she’s a mouse. Yes, reader, Mary is a shapeshifter in a kingdom where Verities rule. It’s a secret that could cost her a head–or a tail.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Cake eater / Dahlin, Allyson
“3070. Marie Antoinette has arrived in the Franc Kingdom to marry the prince, secure an alliance, and rake in likes from her fans. Versailles is not the perfect palace Marie has seen on The Apps: her life is a maze of pointless rules, and the court watches her every move for mistakes.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Anatomy : a love story / Schwartz, Dana
“Hazel Sinnett is a medical student in 19th century Scotland who, after being kicked out because of her gender, works with new attractive acquaintance Jack Currer to procure dead bodies to study, but they soon discover secrets buried in the heart of Edinburgh society.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
The black kids / Hammonds Reed, Christina
“Ashley Bennett and her friends are living the charmed life. It’s the end of high school and […] they can already feel the sunny days and endless possibilities of summer. But everything changes one afternoon in April, when four police officers are acquitted after beating a black man named Rodney King half to death. Suddenly, Ashley’s not just one of the girls. She’s one of the black kids.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Alex & Eliza : a love story / De la Cruz, Melissa
“1777. Albany, New York. As battle cries of the American Revolution echo in the distance, servants flutter about preparing for one of New York society’s biggest events: the Schuylers’ grand ball. […] And when Alex and Eliza meet that fateful night, so begins an epic love story that would forever change the course of American history.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Pride and premeditation / Price, Tirzah
“Seventeen-year-old aspiring lawyer Lizzie Bennet seeks to solve a murder before her rival Mr. Darcy beats her to it.” (Catalogue)
My Lady Jane / Hand, Cynthia
“Edward is the King of England. He’s also dying, which is inconvenient, as he’s only sixteen and he’d rather be planning his first kiss than who will inherit his crown. Jane, Edward’s cousin, is far more interested in books than romance. Unfortunately, Edward has arranged to marry her off to Gifford secure the line of succession. And Gifford is, well, a horse.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Blood countess / Popović, Lana
“1570s Hungary. Anna Darvulia is working as a scullery maid for the Countess Elizabeth Báthory. When Elizabeth takes a liking to Anna […] Anna falls completely under the Countess’s spell– and the Countess takes full advantage. Isolated from her former friends, family, and fiancé, Anna realizes she is not a friend but a prisoner of the increasingly cruel Elizabeth. Then come the murders, and Anna knows it’s only a matter of time before the Blood Countess turns on her, too.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Lovely war / Berry, Julie
“In the perilous days of World Wars I and II, the gods hold the fates — and the hearts — of four mortals in their hands. They are Hazel, James, Aubrey, and Colette. […] Their story, as told by goddess Aphrodite to her husband, Hephaestus, and her lover, Ares, is filled with hope and heartbreak, prejudice and passion, and reveals that, though War is a formidable force, it’s no match for the transcendent power of Love.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

One for all / Lainoff, Lillie
“France, 1655. Tania, the daughter of a retired musketeer, is afflicted with extreme vertigo and subject to frequent falls. When her father is murdered she learns that he has arranged for her to attend Madame de Treville’s newly formed Académie des Mariées in Paris. It is no finishing school: it is an academy for female Musketeers, socialites on the surface but dangerous, well-trained women who wish to protect France from downfall.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Fawkes : a novel / Brandes, Nadine
“Thomas Fawkes is turning to stone, and the only cure to the Stone Plague is to join his father’s plot to assassinate the king of England.”– Provided by publisher.” (Catalogue)
Reputation / Croucher, Lex
“Middle-class Georgiana Ellers has moved to a new town to live with her dreary aunt and uncle. At a particularly dull party, she meets the enigmatic Frances Campbell, a wealthy member of the in-crowd who lives a life Georgiana couldn’t have imagined in her wildest dreams. Lonely and vulnerable, Georgiana falls in with Frances and her unfathomably rich, deeply improper friends.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

And I darken / White, Kiersten
“A girl child is born to Vlad Dracula, in Transylvania, in 1435. Rejected by her father and ignored by her mother, Lada is sent with her younger brother, Radu, to be raised in the Ottoman courts. They meet Mehmed, son of the sultan, and form a toxic triangle that strains the bonds of love and loyalty to the breaking point. She will grow up to be Lada Dragwlya, a vicious and brutal princess, destined to rule and destroy her enemies.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

The prince and the dressmaker / Wang, Jen
“Paris, at the dawn of the modern age: Prince Sebastian is looking for a bride – or rather, his parents are looking for one for him. Sebastian is too busy hiding his secret life from everyone. At night he puts on daring dresses and takes Paris by storm as the fabulous Lady Crystallia – the hottest fashion icon in the world capital of fashion! Sebastian’s secret weapon (and best friend) is the brilliant dressmaker Frances.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Rejected princesses : tales of history’s boldest heroines, hellions, and heretics / Porath, Jason
“A brazen, uproarious collection of illustrations of tough women both historical and fantastical-too awesome, too fierce, and sometimes too weird. These are not fantasy tales of blushing ingenues and happily-ever-afters. Here are the real unsung women of history, real and from literature, mythology and folklore.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Enchantée / Trelease, Gita
“When smallpox kills her parents, Camille Durbonne must find a way to provide for her brother and sister. Relying on magic, she transforms into ‘the Baroness de la Fontaine’ and is swept up into life at the Palace of Versailles. […] But ‘la magie’ has its costs. When a scheming courtier blackmails her, Camille loses control of her secrets. Then revolution erupts, and she must make choices– before Paris burns.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

A million to one / Jaigirdar, Adiba
“Four friends have stolen aboard the Titanic. They’re after the Rubaiyat – a book inlaid with priceless jewels. Josefa is a charismatic thief, Hinnah a daring acrobat, Violet an outstanding actress and Emilie a talented artist. It is Josefa’s plan, but she needs all of their skills. Despite their very different backgrounds, in a world of first-class passengers and suspicious crew members, the girls must work together to pull off the heist of their lives.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

From the Vaults IX: Award-Winners

Well, the world has hurtled around the sun exactly once since we last added to the From the Vaults series. For those of you who are new here, From the Vaults is where we delve into the weirdest corners of our shelves to dust off some of the cool, bizarre, interesting, or just plain old stuff we have that you might not know about. So far, we’ve covered really old stuff, the Archives of Sexuality and Gender, manga gems from the ’80s and ’90s (twice!), books in languages other than English and te reo, printed music, and much more.

Anyway, since the heavens have literally aligned today, we thought it would be a good idea to bring this series back from the brink of death. And, fresh from the excitement around the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, what better topic to choose than award-winning books?

Sorry, not quite those awards. via GIPHY

For today’s post, we are going to be focussing on past winners of the YA Fiction Award from the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. This award has an interesting history. Prior to 1993, there was no separate award recognising Young Adult fiction, but some winners of the general Fiction award would be considered part of the YA canon today. The YA Fiction Award proper came into existence in the year 1993 as part of the AIM Children’s Book Awards, and was known as the “Senior Fiction Award” from 1993-2004. In 1997, the AIM Children’s Book Awards became the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards, and then it changed again to the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults in 2004, at which time the “Senior Fiction Award” became the “Young Adult Fiction Award.”

Fastforward to 2023, sidestep another couple of minor name changes, and the overall awards are now known as the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, and the Young Adult Fiction Award carries prize money of NZ$7,500. In its distinguished history, it has been won by a number of the greats of New Zealand literature, with luminaries like Margaret Mahy, Jack Lasenby, Kate De Goldi, Maurice Gee, Tessa Duder, Elizabeth Knox and more in its list of recipients.

We have most of the award-winning books in our collection — explore the full list below, and visit our Book Award Winners booklist to find more juicy reads that have won other literary prizes.

New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults — Young Adult Fiction Award (2015 – 2023)

New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults — Young Adult Fiction Award (2004 – 2014)

New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards — Senior Fiction Award (1997 – 2003)

AIM Children’s Book Awards — Senior Fiction Award (1993 – 1997)

  • Crossroads / Janice Marriott (1996 winner)*
  • The Blue Lawn / William Taylor (1995 winner)
  • The Value of X / Pat Quinn (1994 winner)*
  • Songs for Alex / Tessa Duder (1993 winner)

* Unfortunately these titles are unavailable to be borrowed from Wellington City Libraries.

Next time on From the Vaults, we’ll explore the winners of the Storylines Tessa Duder Award for young adult fiction and its historical predecessors, so stay tuned for more literary greats!

From the Vaults VIII: The Stack

Well, folks, it’s been a little while since the venerable From the Vaults series has been updated — and it’s high time we did something about it!

For those of you who are new around these parts, From the Vaults is the programme where we show you some of the cool, weird and different stuff that finds its home on our shelves that you might not have known about. So far, we’ve covered the Archives of Sexuality and Gender, manga gems from the ’80s and ’90s (twice!), books in languages other than English and te reo, printed music, and much more.

The topic of today’s episode? Basically, it’s old stuff. Welcome to The Stack.

via GIPHY

Let’s rewind a little — what even is The Stack? In short, it’s a collection of (mostly*) old books that we think are super cool and important, and won’t be getting rid of. (*Of course, not everything in the Stack is super old, as we still add books to it now — and everything’s new at some point in its life!).

Books get added to the Stack if they are:

  • out of print and significant in the history of New Zealand literature (How do we know if they are ‘significant in the history of New Zealand literature? Our librarians, located deep within the book-mines of Te Pātaka, use their uncanny powers of analysis and scientific deduction to make those determinations!)
  • classic, or modern classic international titles that cannot be replaced (What is a ‘classic?’ What is a ‘modern classic?’ Visit our Classic Novels in Haiku page to find out.)

If you’re keen on borrowing items from the Stack, they are all to be found in Te Pātaka, our storage warehouse that contains all the books from the currently-closed Central Library. You can browse them on the catalogue by:

  • Doing a Call Number search for “young adult
  • Under ‘Available Now’ on the left hand side of the screen, select “Off-site collections” from the list of locations
  • Use the ‘Place Reserve’ button to have the book sent to the library of your choice to be picked up!
A screenshot of WCL's online catalogue. In the search bar, the words "Young adult" have been entered, and there is a red arrow pointing towards "Off-site collections" in the locations list on the left-hand side of the screen.

Follow these instructions, and within moments you, too, can be browsing the wonders of our Stack!


To get you started, here are some of our librarians’ favourite reads from the Stack:

Dream-bite / Catran, Ken (published 1995)
“One by one people are dying as they play with virtual reality. The enigmatic Rhoda, travelling around on an antique Harley, decides to find out what is behind the killing. She draws Preben into a dangerous world of technology, intrigue and mind games.” (Catalogue)

I’ll get there, it better be worth the trip / Donovan, John (published 1969)
“While trying to cope with his alcoholic mother and absent father, a lonely New York City teenager develops a confusing crush on another boy.” (Catalogue)

Tanith / Jordan, Sherryl (published 1994)
“When she is three years old, Tanith is taken from a den of wolves to live with the chief of a war-like clan, until, after many years, circumstances force her to choose between wolves and men.” (Catalogue)

Read this ‘review of the week’ on our blog from 15-year-old Ana in 2008! A veritable piece of blog history 🙂


Shadow of the mountain / Mackenzie, Anna (published 2008)
“Geneva’s world has been blown apart by loss. Maybe that’s why her decisions are not always the sharpest. One thing she knows, there’s no way back to the person she once was. When Angus appears in her orbit it seems an omen that things are changing, but life is never that simple. Suggested level: secondary.” (Catalogue)

Kura Toa : warrior school / Tipene, Tim (published 2004)
“Haki’s pounamu is taken from him by a strange old man as he lies in the road after a car accident. His search to find the old man brings him into conflict with his family and friends but forces him to confront his fears, re-connect with his family and Māori heritage and, ultimately, become a warrior.” (Catalogue)

David and Jonathan / Voigt, Cynthia (published 1992)
“The relationship between two close friends, Henry and Jonathan, changes when Jonathan’s cousin David, a victim of the Holocaust, comes to live with David’s family.” (Catalogue)

The faery flag : stories and poems of fantasy and the supernatural / Yolen, Jane (published 1989)
“A collection of stories and poems on various fairy tale, ghost, or supernatural themes.” (Catalogue)

From the Vaults VII: The Archives of Sexuality and Gender

As internet troglodytes naturalised denizens of the internet, it can sometimes be tempting to fall into the belief that everything there is to know can be found for free online. While it’s true that there is an awful lot of information out there, there are two really important things to be aware of:

  • Not everything you can read for free online is true (shocking thought, I know)
  • A lot of the really reliable, peer-reviewed stuff? Yeah. You gotta pay for that (and they wonder why disinformation is rife)

One of the most important, and coolest, things about the public library is that we can get our readers past those paywalls without you having to pay a cent — so you can get access to the most up-to-date, accurate, and reliable info at the low, low cost of typing in your library card number and trying to remember your PIN.

So today, we thought we would spotlight one of our favourite online resources — the Gale Archives of Sexuality and Gender. Whether you’re doing research for school, want to learn more about our queer elders, or are just curious about how societies all over the world have understood and approached questions of sexuality and gender across time — read on, fellow troglodyte, read on!

via GIPHY

Introducing the Archives of Sexuality and Gender

The Gale Archives of Sexuality and Gender is the largest digital collection in the world of primary sources to do with the history and study of sex, sexuality and gender. It’s split up into four different sections, all of which contain everything from magazines, photographs, cartoons, pamphlets, articles, historic books, government briefings, pieces of legislation, pieces of propaganda, and much more — all to do with how sexual norms have changed over time, the development of health education, social movements and activism, changing gender roles… the list goes on.

What’s in the Archives?

The four sections of the Archives are:

  1. International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism and Culture
    What’s it about?
    This archive collects information about sexual and gender diversity in underrepresented areas of the world, including Oceania and Africa, with a special focus on activism and the global struggle for LGBTQIA+ rights and freedoms.
    What can I find here?
    Newspapers, magazines, cartoons, photographs, personal letters, and other files from prominent activists in Africa and Australia.
  2. LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940, Part I
    What’s it about?
    This archive focusses on grassroots movements that sprung up around the world in support of LGBTQIA+ rights during the mid-20th century, especially around the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.
    What can I find here?
    Newsletters, community meeting documents, newspapers, research reports, government briefings, legislation, photographs, medical research, surveys, private letters.
  3. LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940, Part II
    What’s it about?
    This archive provides coverage of groups who, even within the LGBTQIA+ community, have not been as well represented as other activist groups, including religious queer communities as well as Two-Spirit, bisexual, transgender, and intersex communities. The focus in this archive is more on personal stories than on organisations.
    What can I find here?
    Oral histories, posters, interview transcripts, research papers, psychological surveys, personal letters, manuscripts.
  4. Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century
    What’s it about?
    This archive focusses on understanding how various societies’ understanding of sexual and gender norms have changed from the 1500s through to today.
    What can I find here?
    Extremely rare books and manuscripts including poetry, fiction, historic guides to etiquette and behaviour, medical and scientific texts, law, religious literature, and the personal library of Dr. Alfred Kinsey (yes, that Kinsey)

How do I use the Archives?

Well, in some ways an archive is sort of like a microcosm of the general internet. Just like you can with Google, you can do a general search in the archive’s search engine, and it will bring up an array of results that may or may not include what you’re actually looking for.

But an archive like this one is a little bit cleverer than just any old search engine — so for us to get the most out of it, we have to be a little bit cleverer too!

For example, if you’re interested in learning about LGBTQIA+ history in New Zealand, you can use a special Publication Search to limit your results to only items that were ‘born’ in New Zealand. If what you’re looking for is really specific (e.g. “political posters produced in the 1980s in New Zealand relating to the AIDs crisis”), using a combination of Advanced Search tools will be your way to go.

But we can get even cleverer still! Here are two of our favourite ways to use the Archives:

Topic Finder

The Topic Finder helps you visualise connections between what you’ve searched, and other topics that you might not have even considered! This can be really helpful if you’re doing research for a project, for example, because using the Topic Finder, you can quickly see related topics you might like to look into further, that you wouldn’t have found if you were just doing a general search.

Plus, it looks super pretty — here’s a cute example of a quick search I did for “New Zealand” — as you can see, it has quickly broken down that huge topic into a whole bunch of more specific topics that it will be way easier for me to explore further:

The colours! So fetching!

Term Frequency

If you’re a language nerd like me, you’re super interested in how the language we use changes over time. And the language used to describe the LGBTQIA+ community changes frequently as social norms are challenged and eventually changed. The Term Frequency tool lets you see exactly how this works by showing letting you compare how often particular terms are referenced in written works throughout history.

This is a really interesting example — in the below graph, the black line traces usage of the word “transgender,” whereas the blue line traces the usage of the word “transsexual.” Note that “transsexual” was the more common word, until 1993, when transgender activist Leslie Feinberg popularised the use of the word “transgender” in her impactful novel Stone Butch Blues.

Look, a graph might not seem cool to you, but it seems really cool to us!

So what?

Armed with your new array of tools and techniques, go forth and explore! There is so much interesting, exciting, challenging, inspiring, and thought-provoking stuff in this archive just waiting to be found. Go on! Find it!

From the Vaults VI: More Manga Gems

We have already posted in this very blog series about the treasure trove of manga titles that are available for you to reserve — over 170 series or stand-alone titles, for a total of over 4,000 unique volumes to peruse. And though we’ve been buying more manga for our branch libraries so it’s easier for you to browse, there’s still a sizeable chunk of the manga collection on the shelves at Te Pātaka, our collection and distribution centre, just waiting for you to reserve it. Read on to discover some of the library’s hidden manga gems.

Bleach. Volume 1, Strawberry and the soul reaper / Kubo, Tite

What better way to start this list than with iconic shōnen series Bleach? All 74 volumes of the legendary adventures of Ichigo Kurosaki and Rukia Kuchiki can be found on the shelves at Te Pātaka, and you can reserve them to get sent wherever you like. If you’re still into doing things old-school, you can also find the Bleach anime (movies and series) on DVD on our catalogue. If you haven’t yet descended into the world of Soul Reapers and Hollows, spirits and afterlives, well, now is as good a time as any.

The drifting classroom. Volume 1 / Umezu, Kazuo

The Drifting Classroom is truly a hidden gem in our manga collection. First published in Japan in 1972 by horror mangaka Kazuo Umezu, this series won him the prestigious Shogakukan Manga Award in 1974. After a supernatural tremor causes young Sho Takamatsu’s classroom to transport to an otherworldly post-apocalyptic wasteland, he and his classmates find themselves beset by nightmares, monsters, and creeping madness as they try to find a way back to their homes. Side note: this chilling and beautifully illustrated manga was adapted into the film Drifting School in 1995 — the film itself was generally poorly-received, but it did serve to kick-start the career of one Drake Bell, in the role of Kenny Smith!

A drifting life / Tatsumi, Yoshihiro

One of the more ‘literary’ sets on this list, Eisner Award-winning manga A Drifting Life is often read as an autobiographical series chronicling the life of the author, Yoshihiro Tatsumi, in the early stages of his career as a mangaka. Metafictional efforts like this can sometimes come across as a little stilted or forced (“Oh wow, another book about how much of a struggle it is to write a book”) — not so with A Drifting Life. The art is by turns sparkling and muted, the text by turns dense and sparse, as the situation demands. This is a work of art about work and art that you really shouldn’t miss. 

Magic knight Rayearth. [Volume 1] / CLAMP (Mangaka group)

A classic of both the magical girl and mecha genres, CLAMP’s Magic Knight Rayearth sits among the greats of 90s shōjo manga — a feat that is even more impressive when you consider this period contains some of the true stalwarts of the genre — we’re talking like Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura levels here. Action-packed, strong characterisations, and an epic video game-esque story treatment characterise this series. It’s little wonder it spawned no fewer than six video game adaptations in its history.

My lesbian experience with loneliness / Nagata, Kabi

Okay, okay, I know we’ve written about this incredible standalone volume before on this very blog. But look, who could blame us for wanting to highlight it again? It’s funny, it’s sad, it’s expressive, it’s relatable — you definitely won’t regret picking it up. My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness made a massive splash when it burst onto the scenes in 2017 — interestingly, for a manga title, it didn’t just have an impact in Japan, but also in Western media, where it won the Crunchyroll ‘Manga of the Year’ award, was listed among the best comics of the 2017 on both Publishers Weekly and Amazon, also picking up a Harvey Award for Best Manga.

NonNonBa / Mizuki, Shigeru

Shigeru Mizuki’s critically-acclaimed NonNonBa is rightly considered one of the finest examples of gekiga (劇画) style comics, defined by its stylised, dramatic and cinematic artistic style and more esoteric subject matter. NonNonBa is at its heart a story about Mizuki’s childhood, and his complex relationship with his grandmother, which is intersected by their explorations of the world of yōkai (妖怪), the supernatural spirits of Japanese folklore. This was the first manga title to win the coveted Angoulême Prize for Best Album, the Fauve d’Or, in 2007.
Orange : the complete collection. 1 / Takano, Ichigo

What’s not to love about Orange? This is a brilliant story that fuses elements of romance and sci-fi tropes such as time travel into a very compelling slice-of-life package that is very hard to put down. The overall mood is quite sombre in places, as the series definitely doesn’t shy away from exploring some pretty dark places thematically, but the promise of hope is never far from sight. 

Otherworld Barbara. Vol. 1 / Hagio, Moto

Okay, so this is definitely a weird one, but hear us out. This science fiction thriller really throws the whole kitchen sink at the reader. Cannibalistic, murderous nine-year-olds? Check. Eccentric clergyman who possibly holds the secret to immortality? Check. An absolutely wild ride that delivers everything it promises and more? Check. We can’t promise you won’t be a little bit disturbed, but sometimes the best art can take you far beyond your comfort zone.

Ouran High School Host Club. Vol. 1 / Hatori, Bisco

Another one we’ve promoted before in this redoubtable publication. We will never not stan for Ouran High School Host Club. We hear the anime is on Netflix now, but trust us, you’ll want to read the manga first. It’s just so great!

Sakura Hime : the legend of Princess Sakura. 1 / Tanemura, Arina

So Sakura Hime isn’t about to win any major awards for originality. It does what it says on the tin. It’s a shōjo manga series featuring all the usual tropes: cutesy characters with a (slightly bloodthirsty) taste for magical combat, man-eating demons to be defeated, a touch of romance, and a band of friends who together can surely take on any challenge. But it does it so well. And we think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by some of the depth and nuance afforded to Sakura, our 14-year-old royal protagonist, and her friends. This is a good one — check it out if this is your kind of thing!

Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal Volume 1, The name’s Yuma! / Yoshida, Shin

Yes, there is a Yu-Gi-Oh! manga. Is it good? Well, you be the judge. We will definitely say that the art is amazing. Like weirdly amazing for a spinoff of a spinoff of an anime that’s a spinoff of a trading card game that’s a spinoff of yet another anime that itself is the spinoff of a manga from the mid-90s. Give it a try; you might just like it!

From the Vaults V: Books Around the World

This next piece in our From the Vaults series, being an exploration of some of the hidden gems of the library’s vast collections, is a personal favourite of mine. Whether you’re looking for books to add to your reading list for your Connections internal in English, or are just hungering for a range of cultural perspectives and experiences to add to the pile of books waiting to be read on your bedside table, don’t worry folks — we got you. Our Books From Around the World booklist has just undergone its most comprehensive update in *checks notes* a whole decade, and our ambition is for it to contain at least one book by an author from every country in the world. No biggie.

 Just as Lisa doesn't wish to eat solely at Americatown, we don't want to read solely from Aotearoatown all the time either! (Okay yeah it's a stretch but look this is the best I've got)

So anyway, we’re gonna be straight up with you — though our ambitions are great, we haven’t yet lived up to them. There are around 40 countries (Andorra, Azerbaijan, etc.) that, despite our best research, we just can’t find books from — at least, not books that have been translated into English (if you find a book from a country we’ve missed, let us know!). But the vast majority of countries around the world have representation in our master list — from Bolivia and Uruguay, Vanuatu and Kiribati, Trinidad and Tobago and Haiti, to Albania and Ukraine, Yemen and the UAE, the Philippines and Kazakhstan, Uganda and Angola; and many more besides. We’re pretty chuffed with it, if we’re being honest, and really recommend you check out the full list!

Some of the books we have tracked down are among the first books written by an author from that country to have ever been translated into English — for example, Return to the enchanted island by Johary Ravaloson from Madagascar, published in 2019. Others are part of a long-standing tradition of literary translation that dates back decades or centuries — The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (France, 1844) for example, or I am fifteen and I don’t want to die by Christine Arnothy (Hungary, 1955). Others, like Consuming Ocean Island by Katerina Martina Teaiwa (Kiribati, 2015) or Legends, traditions and tales of Nauru by Timothy Detudamo (Nauru, 2008) are collections of stories drawn from the world’s various oral traditions, written down with permission from indigenous storytellers.

‘But,’ you may ask, ‘what sets your list apart from the myriad of other such lists I can find online?’ Well, for starters, these are all books that you can actually get your mitts on from your local library — just click the title, then ‘Place Reserve,’ then choose the library closest to your house, and the book will soon be yours! But beyond that, there is something else that makes this list special — you! Not you you, but teens in general — we’ve done our best to try and make sure that every book that makes it onto our list is in some way, shape or form about the experiences and lives of teenagers and young people. Taken together, you could see this list as a pretty comprehensive repository of stories about what it means and has meant to be a young person around the world and through history. And we reckon that’s pretty cool.

Anyway, here are some of my favourite books from the list — but don’t forget to check out the whole list (currently sitting at about 250 books!) for the complete picture.

Here the whole time / Martins, Vitor
Country of origin: Brazil
Setting: Metro Brazil; contemporary
Original language: Portuguese
Format: Novel
Themes: body positivity, bullying, coming-of-age, LGBTQ+, single-parent families, school, self-esteem

Year of the rabbit / Tian
Country of origin: Cambodia
Setting: Phnom Penh, Cambodia; 1970s
Original language: French
Format: Graphic novel
Themes: family, government and society, history, political refugees, war

Aya / Abouet, Marguerite
Country: Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)
Setting: Yopougon (Yop City), Côte d’Ivoire; 1978
Original language: French
Format: Graphic novel
Themes: adventure, community, family, friendship, neighbourhoods 

The field guide to the North American teenager / Philippe, Ben
Country of origin: Haiti/Canada
Setting: Montreal, Canada – Austin, Texas; contemporary
Original language: English
Format: Novel
Themes: coming-of-age, culture shock, friendship, moving countries, relationships, school, single-parent families

Moonstone : the boy who never was / Sjón
Country of origin: Iceland
Setting: Reykjavík, Iceland; 1918-19
Original language: Icelandic
Format: Novel
Themes: coming-of-age, epidemics, globalisation, history, LGBTQ+, masculinity

The forest of wool and steel / Miyashita, Natsu
Country of origin: Japan
Setting: Hokkaido, Japan; contemporary
Original language: Japanese
Format: Novel
Themes: careers, coming-of-age, music, small-town vs. big-city

Things fall apart / Achebe, Chinua
Country of origin: Nigeria
Setting: Àlà Ị̀gbò, Southeastern Nigeria; 1890s
Original language: English
Format: Novel
Themes: British imperialism, colonisation, government and society, history, justice, masculinity

Afakasi woman / Young, Lani Wendt
Country of origin: Samoa/New Zealand
Setting: Samoa (various)
Original language: English
Format: Short stories
Themes: community, everyday life, folklore, Pasifika culture, people and society, relationships, womanhood

From the Vaults IV: Printed Music

Heads up, music nerds, this one’s for you! This week’s post in our From the Vaults series features some of the more niche content we hold in the vast warren of shelves that is Te Pātaka, our Collection Distribution Centre — printed music.

In the time since the Central Library closed, you may well have forgotten that it contained a massive collection of music scores and songbooks, covering all styles and genres of music from pop to classical, jazz to musical theatre, and much more. Whether you need a score for a music exam or NCEA performance at school, or just want to chill out at home learning some new tunes, there’s bound to be something in our collection for you.

How our classical, jazz, and popular sheet music collections are often[citation needed] described!

But how to find it, you ask? Sadly, it’s not quite as easy as just typing “classical music” into the catalogue search and hoping for the best. Your best bet is to know a little about what you want before hitting the keyboard. Here are a few different ways you can go about it:

1. Search by Composer

This is probably the most straightforward way to go about finding sheet music in our catalogue. First, go to our catalogue. Go to the “Advanced Search”, and click in the “author” field. Here you can type the name of the composer — it doesn’t matter what order you put their names in. For example, “Bach, Johann Sebastian” and “Johann Sebastian Bach” will return the same set of results. If you’re looking for guitar tabs for your favourite band, the band name itself is the “author,” e.g. “Green Day” 0r “Ed Sheeran.”

Once you’ve done your search, you may be confronted by an intimidatingly long list of results. Fear not! Your next step is to filter by format. Click on “Format” on the left-hand side, and then select “Score.” Now, your results will show just printed music, and you can browse and reserve the items to your heart’s content! The librarians/gremlins/mystical shelf beings at Te Pātaka will hunt down that score and send it wherever it needs to go.

Behold, the magic of catalogue filtering!

2. Search By Instrument

This feature is a little less reliable and a little more clunky than the above, and it can only be used for classical music and jazz, but it can still be useful if you’re looking for pieces to learn for school or leisure! Here’s how you do it:

  1. Go to our catalogue homepage
  2. Click on “Advanced Search”
  3. Using the drop-down arrow, select “Call Number” from the list and “begins with” in the middle column
  4. Type “score” followed by the following numbers (or you can click the links below to take you right there!):
    1. Vocal music — 780
      1. Part songs — 780.4
      2. Sacred music — 780.5
      3. Choral scores — 780.6
      4. Musical theatre and Opera — 780.7
    2. Instrumental music — 781
      1. Flute and piccolo — 781.11
      2. Recorder — 781.112
      3. Oboe — 781.12
      4. Clarinet — 781.13
      5. Bassoon — 781.14
      6. Trumpet — 781.15 (jazz trumpet 781.1598)
      7. Horn — 781.16
      8. Trombone — 781.17
      9. Saxophone — 781.18 (jazz sax 781.1898)
      10. Bagpipes and accordion — 781.19
      11. Harp — 781.2
      12. Lute — 781.24
      13. Guitar — 781.25
      14. Violin — 781.3
      15. Viola — 781.34
      16. Cello — 781.35
      17. Double bass — 781.37
      18. Piano — 781.4 (jazz piano 781.48)
      19. Harpsichord — 781.5
      20. Piano duets — 781.6
      21. Organ — 781.7 and 781.8
      22. Percussion — 781.9
    3. Chamber and orchestral music — 782
      1. String trios — 782.1
      2. Piano trios — 782.2
      3. String quartets — 782.3
      4. Piano quartets — 782.4
      5. String quintets — 782.5
      6. Wind ensembles — 782.6
      7. Orchestral scores — 782.7
      8. Miniature scores — 782.77

3. Virtual Shelf Browsing

If you’re the kind of person that likes wandering through the shelves, revelling in the possibility of serendipitous discovery, there’s some good news — with our online catalogue, you can (sort of) replicate that experience! Here’s how you do it:

  1. Go to our catalogue homepage
  2. Click on “Advanced Search”
  3. Using the drop-down arrow, select “Call Number” from the list
  4. Enter “score” or “songbook” in the search
  5. When the list of results come up, select “View As: Flow” in the top right corner
  6. Finally, select “Sort By: Call Number” in the top left. The result will be all of the scores and/or songbooks held in the library collection, organised in order of where they would be on the shelf. If we have an image of the book cover, you will see that as well (but a lot of these books were added to the library catalogue before computers or the Internet existed, so we don’t have cover images for all of them!)

Just the same as browsing a physical library shelf… right?

So, if printed music is your jam, make sure you check out this veritable cornucopia of shtuff. It’s there for you to enjoy!

From the Vaults III: World Languages

So far in our From the Vaults series, highlighting the niftiest of nifty collections held primarily in the Central collection in Johnsonville, we’ve heard about LGBTQ+ manga and had a delicious expose on some of our favourite Māori authors. Did you know that the library also holds a huge collection of books in different world languages?

That’s right: we have everything from the usual suspects (français, español, Deutsch, 汉语) to the slightly more niche (Tiếng Việt, русский, Türkçe, Tagalog) to the even nichier still (αρχαία ελληνικά, Cymraeg, српски, עִבְרִית‎). All up, there are about 40 languages (other than English and te reo Māori) with significant chunks of shelf-space represented in our collection: a polyglot’s dream. Check out our World Languages master list to find out what we have and where.

Whether you speak a different language at home, are learning one for school, or are just a general language and linguistics nerd (we know you’re out there!), let us know what you want and the finest librarians in the land will scurry to the shelves, squint at the spines of the book, figure out whether what they’re looking at is Sinhalese, Tamil or Gujarati, and send the book of your desires to whichever of our 14 locations is most convenient to you. Sound sweet? Oh yeah, it is.

While you’re at it, why not check out our selection of language-learning databases? Duolingo is great, but your library card gives you access to a huge range of options — dive in now! You can also check out publications, newspapers and magazines in over 60 languages over on PressReader, and there are also heaps of resources available on OverDrive, both for foreign language study and, if you’re learning Chinese, a large amount of Chinese fiction and nonfiction for your delectation.

Now, this wouldn’t be a From the Vaults post without some recommendations. You’ll have to forgive me for selecting only from the languages I speak (Greek and Latin, really — I think you see where this is going) — let us know what languages you speak below, and we’ll see what we can find for you!

Collected poems / Cavafy, Constantine
As far as Greek poets from the modern era go, you can’t go past the extraordinary Egyptian-Greek poet C. P. Cavafy (Κ. Π. Καβάφης). This book is a collection of his complete works in Greek and English on facing pages, spanning several decades from the 1880s to the early 1930s. His work is almost indescribably sublime — by turns nihilistic and sparking with a manic energy; dreamily, hazily introspective and bursting from the page to club you around the head with its intensity. His explorations of queer love and romance are also to die for, and very much ahead of his time. Even if you don’t speak Greek, y’all should read this, like, yesterday. Here’s a sample to whet your poetic appetite; a ghostly evocation of a city and a mind in sympathetic ruin:

You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore.
This city will always pursue you.
You’ll walk the same streets, grow old
in the same neighborhoods, turn gray in these same houses.
You’ll always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere:
there’s no ship for you, there’s no road.
Now that you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner,

you’ve destroyed it everywhere in the world.

Καινούργιους τόπους δέν θά βρείς, δέν θάβρεις άλλες θάλασσες.
‘Η πόλις θά σέ ακολουθεί. Στούς δρόμους θά γυρνάς
τούς ίδιους. Καί στές γειτονιές τές ίδιες θά γερνάς
καί μές στά ίδια σπίτια αυτά θ’ ασπρίζεις.
Πάντα στήν πόλι αυτή θά φθάνεις. Γιά τά αλλού – μή ελπίζεις –
δέν έχει πλοίο γιά σέ, δέν έχει οδό.
Έτσι πού τή ζωή σου ρήμαξες εδώ

στήν κώχη τούτη τήν μικρή, σ’ όλην τήν γή τήν χάλασες.

— From C. P. Cavafy, “The City.” (1894)

Three classical poets : Sappho, Catullus and Juvenal. / Jenkyns, Richard
Okay, you knew from the general nerdy tone of this post that we’d end up in classical territory eventually. And this book bears the distinction of preventing three of the coolest classical poets in their original languages with some pretty dazzling English translations alongside. Sappho, of course, wrote in Greek and was one of the earliest known female poets whose work has survived to the present day. And oh boy, has it survived — her work is vital, breathless, exciting and alluring. Catullus and Juvenal both wrote in Latin — the former is probably the sassiest poet ever to have lived (and also one of the most soul-bendingly gorgeous lyrical poets as well), while the latter delighted in satire — his subject was The Human Experience. There’s plenty to enjoy with these three poets — scoop them up now for your reading pleasure!

From the Vaults II: Discovering Māori Authors

Kia ora, e hoa mā! For the next post in our ongoing series exploring the riches of the Central collection at Te Pātaka, our Collection Distribution Centre in Johnsonville, we thought it appropriate to celebrate some of the books by Māori authors that are held there. Kia kaha te reo Māori!

The drill is just the same as last time — find the book you want in the catalogue, click ‘Place Reserve,’ and choose the branch you want to pick it up from. For extra credit, if you want to find only books held at Te Pātaka, you can either:

  • Filter your search results by location and select “Off-Site Storage,” or,
  • Filter your search results by collection and choose the collection type you think best describes the book you’re looking for, for example, “Store – Adult Fiction” or “Store – Young Adult Fiction.”

For now, though, here are some of our favourites. Many of these books are out of print and only held at Te Pātaka or in our New Zealand collection at He Matapihi Molesworth Library. Check out our handy booklist to find more literary gems from Māori authors past and present.

Bloom / Morey, Kelly Ana
“Summoned home by her grandmother to the Maori settlement where she grew up, Constance Spry returns to her mother and sister and the country pub where they live. Slowly, but surely, she gathers the myriad threads that are the lives and loves of the four murderous Women Spry.” (Catalogue)

 

Kissing shadows / Renée
“Do we ever really know or understand the motives of the ones we love? When Vivvie Caird is faced by the sight of her beautiful, strong-willed mother lying limp and speechless in a hospital bed, she feels empowered to begin unlocking the mystery that is her fathers legacy. Vivvies nave undertaking soon finds a parallel in her mothers own account of what happened when her husband left home one day, never to return. A family, and a court must confront a devastating event that occurred in the midst of the hard times of last century. This fast-paced, page-turning novel takes the reader into an absorbing and moving world of shadowy relationships and intrigue.” (Catalogue)

Wooden horses / George, James
“This novel focuses on former UN peacekeeper Tom Solomon and the mysterious old Maori woman, Phoenix, who seeks him out on a remote Northland beach to recount the story of her life. She tells of her foster parents, Jessye and Will, and of her intense love affair with a runaway boy, Luka.” (Catalogue)

 

Ngā waituhi o Rēhua / Mataira, Katarina
“This science fantasy novel in te reo Maori follows four teenagers living on Rehua, a planet settled after Earth is destroyed by ecological disasters and global war. The four raise hokio, giant mystical birds, which take them on flights to explore their new world. On one flight, they discover an island with another colony of people, and here, they are given a quest to interpret hieroglyphic message drawn on cave walls. Deciphering these symbols leads them to appease the feared tipua wheke, a gargantuan octopus, and help the Turehu, fair-skinned sea fairies, who have discovered a way to return to Earth.” (Catalogue)

One night out stealing. / Duff, Alan
“The second gripping, powerful novel by the author of Once Were Warriors. Boys’ homes, borstal, jail, stealing, then jail again – and again. That’s been life for Jube and Sonny. One Pakeha, the other Maori, only vaguely aware of life beyond pubs and their hopeless cronies . . . Reviewers found it compulsive and unforgettable, one saying: ‘Brutal, foul-mouthed, violent, despairing and real . . . it can’t be ignored’. In this novel Alan Duff confirms his skills as a gripping story-teller and a masterful creator of characters and situations. As one reviewer noted, it is ‘original and important’.” (Catalogue)

Festival of miracles / Tawhai, Alice
“An electrifying debut. This is a collection of short stories by a gifted writer. Alice Tawhai is bilingual and is a keen observer of the luminous, the unusual, the different and the beautiful both in her writing and through her photography. In Festival of Miracles Alice Tawhai has created a bittersweet New Zealand wonderland that is at once luminous and sensual, tragic and fated. The stories in this debut collection are set from the Hokianga to Bluff, and they are populated by a stunning range of characters – circus workers, tattoo artists, bikies, mail-order brides, beautiful victims, wild children, immigrants, tangata whenua – who never cease to believe that they will find perfect things amidst the human imperfection of their lives: miracles, not misfortune.” (Catalogue)

From the Vaults I: Manga

The vast collections of the Wellington Central Library have finally found a home in the Te Pātaka Collection Distribution Centre in Johnsonville, and the extensive YA collection is now available to borrow. The process is simple — just locate the item in our online catalogue, click “Reserve Item,” enter your card number and PIN, and select which library you’d like it to be sent to.

But some things are a little more difficult now that you can’t go and browse the shelves yourself. Even if you know what you’re looking for, and even though our catalogue does a pretty good job of telling you what we have and where it is, sometimes stuff is just hard to find. So we thought we’d start a blog series — From The Vaults — highlighting some of the cool stuff you can reserve.

 'I could find all the books I need on the catalogue myself, if only there weren't so many cats in the way!'

Let’s start with manga. Manga (漫画 or マンガ or まんが) are pocket-sized comics normally originating from Japan. That’s not to say that manga can only come from Japan — many countries have their own independent industries now, from Korean manhwa (만화) and Chinese mànhuà (漫画) to manfra in France. They are usually printed in black-and-white, and read right-to-left, a feature which some say dates back to manga’s origins in 12th-century scrolls. Regardless of when it all started, manga are extremely popular today in Japan, and increasingly outside of Japan as well.

Wellington City Libraries has an extensive collection of manga series and stand-alone titles, from popular series like Naruto, Death Note, and Cardcaptor Sakura to alternative and underground works like Anomal and Iceland. As most of the books in this collection were held at Central, and are now in the closed stacks at Te Pātaka, we have produced a master list of all of the manga we hold — over 160 series and stand-alone titles, along with quick descriptions of the genres, themes, and target audiences of each manga. Sometimes, due to items being damaged or lost, you might notice that a series is incomplete. Never fear! Just get in touch with us using the Suggestion To Buy form, and we’ll move heaven and earth to locate that pesky missing volume and give you the satisfying and complete reading experience you need and deserve.

Go forth and explore! In the meantime, as it’s currently the Out On The Shelves campaign week, we thought we’d pick out some of our favourite manga featuring LGBTQ+ characters and themes.

Wandering son. Volume one / Shimura, Takako
{reps: trans*, lesbian}
Set in that period between the end of childhood and the beginning of adolescence, this gorgeous manga from arguably Japan’s greatest master of LGBTQ+ stories, Takako Shimura, Wandering Son follows friends Shuichi Nitori and Yoshino Takatsuki as they navigate school, life, and their relationships along with their growing understanding of their own gender identities. This is one of the few manga series to feature trans* characters as protagonists — and trust us when we say it’s not to be missed.

My lesbian experience with loneliness / Nagata, Kabi
{reps: lesbian}
My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness is an honest and heartfelt look at one young woman’s exploration of her sexuality, mental well-being, and growing up in our modern age. Told using expressive artwork that invokes both laughter and tears, this moving and highly entertaining single volume depicts not only the artist’s burgeoning sexuality, but many other personal aspects of her life that will resonate with readers.

My brother’s husband. Volume 1 / Tagame, Gengoroh
{reps: gay}
Yaichi is a work-at-home suburban dad in contemporary Tokyo; formerly married to Natsuki and father to their young daughter, Kana. Their lives suddenly change with the arrival at their doorstep of a hulking, affable Canadian named Mike Flanagan, who declares himself the widower of Yaichi’s estranged gay twin, Ryoji. Mike is on a quest to explore Ryoji’s past, and the family reluctantly but dutifully takes him in. What follows is an unprecedented and heartbreaking look at the state of a largely still-closeted Japanese gay culture: how it’s been affected by the West, and how the next generation can change the preconceptions about it and prejudices against it.

Pretty guardian Sailor Moon. 1 / Takeuchi, Naoko
{reps: lesbian}
Usagi Tsukino is a normal girl until she meets up with Luna, a talking cat, who tells her that she is Sailor Moon. As Sailor Moon, Usagi must fight evils and enforce justice, in the name of the Moon and the mysterious Moon Princess. Anyone familiar with the history of manga and anime will have at least passing familiarity with Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon — and the same-sex relationship between Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus is legendary among fans of the series.

Overdrive cover Bloom Into You, Volume 1, Nakatani Nio (ebook)
{reps: lesbian}
Yuu has always adored shoujo manga and yearns for the day when someone might give her a love confession that would send her heart aflutter. Yet when a junior high school classmate confesses his feelings to her–she feels nothing. Disappointed and confused, Yuu enters high school, where she sees the confident and beautiful student council member Nanami. When the next person to confess to Yuu is Nanami herself, has her romantic dream finally come true?

Ouran High School Host Club. Vol. 1 / Hatori, Bisco
{reps: genderfluid/genderqueer, queer}
Ouran High School Host Club is a great shōjo manga from the early 2000s that almost single-handedly deconstructs many of society’s most carefully-constructed preconceptions about gender roles, sexuality, and gender identity. Main character Haruhi is biologically female, but presents androgynously and has no hang-ups about adopting a very fluid approach to their gender. In the original Japanese, they refer to themselves almost exclusively using gender-neutral pronouns (a feature that is sadly lost in the English translation — see a nuanced discussion of gender in OHSHC here), and their parent, Ryoji, is openly queer and presents in drag most times we meet him. Read and enjoy, friends!

Cardcaptor Sakura. Book 1 / CLAMP (Mangaka group)
{reps: lesbian, bisexual, gay, pansexual, genderqueer}
When Sakura Kinomoto finds a strange book in her father’s library, the only thing left inside is Kero-chan, the book’s cute little guardian beast, who informs Sakura that since the Clow cards escaped while he was asleep, it’s now her job to capture them. Cardcaptor Sakura is revolutionary among mainstream manga for its easy and natural portrayal of a wide range of LGBTQ+ characters, including Sakura herself (pan), her best friend Tomoyo (lesbian), and a steady, loving gay couple (Toya and Yukito). Plus there’s plenty of epic fantasy elements and a great story to boot.

From the stacks

I’ve talked about our stack collection before and I promised to make it a (semi) regular feature, so here’s more picks from our YA stack collection. This time I’m highlighting some novels about teenagers facing the complexities of their lives.

Book cover courtesy of SyndeticsTree by leaf, Cynthia Voight

Clothide is troubled; her father, a veteran of the First World War, has become a recluse. Her brother is away for the Summer and her beloved friend, the family servant, Lou, has been dismissed by her mother. On top of this, her family are talking about selling the peninsula where they live. Clothilde wishes and prays for life to be different; but she finds the cost of these wishes is almost beyond paying. It’s a beautiful novel, which looks at love, life and relationships to the land you call home.

Book cover courtesy of SyndeticsDeliver us from Evie, M.E. Kerr

Everyone’s talking about Evie Burrman and nothing good. In a small, conservative town this has serious implications for her family. It’s narrated by Evie’s brother Parr, who’s torn between his love for his sister and his need for acceptance. Evie is a wonderful, interesting character in her own right, who stands firm in belief to be true to herself. This book was published in 1994, so some of the writing and attitudes may seem a bit dated, but it’s sensitive and tender – a LGBTQ classic for a reason.

Book cover courtesy of SyndeticsThe year they burned the books, Nancy Garden

Teenagers and adults clash over sex education in this novel, set in a small town. The staff at the school newspaper fight amongst themselves about how to deal with this; issues about freedom of speech, belief and freedom are all debated, and some of the characters have higher stakes in this than others. At its core it is a struggle between what the teen characters want to decide for themselves and what the adults want to decide for them – a topic that is still relevant today. Although that cover hasn’t aged nearly as well!

The pigman, Paul Zindel

There are some books that just stay with you, and The Pigman is one of them. Two teenagers entangle their lives with that of a lonely old man, all of them seeking a respite from loneliness. But external circumstances and their own frailty have tragic consequences. It was written in 1968, but still feels incredibly modern in its approach to characters and story.

From the stacks

Did you know that we have a secret area of the library known as the stacks? It’s where we keep:

*Items that are still in demand which are in a deteriorating condition and cannot be replaced.
*Out of print items of special interest.
*Classic titles or titles by classic authors in a deteriorating condition of which replacement editions cannot be readily sourced.
*Valuable editions of titles.
*Copies of fiction titles written by major ‘Prize’ winning authors.

(From our Collection development policy)

It’s a treasure trove of awesome books which really need a bit more love. You can get these books by reserving them or going up to the second floor and asking at the desk. Here are a few of my favourites. There’s a fair amount in the stack, so I may make this a regular feature.

Book cover courtesy of SyndeticsWatermark, Penelope Todd

In a month or so we’ll be hitting a record breaking summer. Or at least, we hope so! This is an incredible novel about a summer that’s as wonderful and strange as any you could ever live. Zillah, an eighteen year old who’s having doubts about the future that her life so far have been building to – something has to break. So she heads off, away from safety, to a place suggested by a mysterious letter. There she meets an enigmatic brother and sister. Events take a turn for the dangerous as both the natural world and the people around her move in their own mysterious patterns. There are two sequels; Dark and Zillah.

Book cover courtesy of SyndeticsMontmorency, Eleanor Updale

A young thief gets a second chance – of sorts – when a doctor decides that rather than consign the unammed man to death, he’ll try a series of experiments to rebuild his shattered body. The man that results from this is named Mortmorency. Mortmorency is clever and quick and tries to engineer his escape, but there are parts of his life that he can’t quite leave behind. Mortmorency’s set in Victorian London, so a literal world away from Watermark.

Book cover courtesy of SyndeticsThe sea-wreck stranger, Anna Mackenzie

Ness is a young woman struggles against the inflexible traditions of her island society. She has the sea in her blood, or so she says, in a place that hates and fears the sea. A stranger washes up with the tide, and suddenly her future becomes even more uncertain and dangerous than she could have imagined. The world that MacKenzie has written is completely fictitious yet familiar and realistic. It’s one of the best novels I’ve read in a while – which makes me happy to have looked in the stacks in the first place!

Spider Mansion, Caroline MacDonald

I wasn’t prepared for how creepy I’d find this novel. It’s a simple enough premise: the Day family run a business out of their home, a beautiful historic home. The Todd family come to stay…and don’t leave. The Todds exert a strange hold over the Days, and tensions escalate and events spiral out of control.