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What I’m Reading Tina Matthews

Find more tasty ideas in Sunday magazine with this week’s recipes from Erin Clarkson, Jordan Rondel and Sam Mannering...

I’ve been swallowed up by NZ books while staying in Wellington. I began with Spark Hunter by Sonya Wilson. Set in Southland and like a fusion between The Borrowers and a David Attenborough documentary, I felt as though I’d entered Fiordland via the tree roots. I finished the book steeped in the mysteries and rare beauty of that place.

Eddy, Eddy by Kate De Goldi is full of quirky and complicated characters who, because they are so well observed and written, really made me laugh. It is a joyful immersion in wonderful words, in craft, in unlikely families (and their pets) and in different kinds of faith and love.

I read The Fish by Lloyd Jones in Sydney but had Wellington coursing in my veins by the end of it. The family, with its hardship and obscurity, felt like one I half knew from Wellington’s dark, weathered outposts. And the account of the Wahine storm took me right there.

An essential Australian novel is The White Girl by Tony Birch. It’s small town Australia, 1960s, a time when racist ‘‘protector’’ legislation means Aboriginal resident Odette needs permission to do anything. Miraculously though, this is a proud and beautiful story of dignity, resilience and survival in the face of such cruelty.

I regularly read The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss and Crockett Johnson. These authors, both together and apart, were responsible for some of the most original works in children’s literature. Maurice Sendak said of Krauss that she respected the ‘‘natural ferocity of children’’. Not many picture book authors do that today.

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2022-09-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-09-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/286156499668752

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