Whitcoulls Recommends: Joan's top kids books for 2024

To mark the end of the year, Joan Mackenzie has outlined her favourite kids' books for 2024.

Her top five consists of:

Lisa Carrington Chases a Champion by Lisa Carrington and Scott Pearson 

Kuwi’s Fluey Huwi by Kat Quin 

Detective Beans: Case of Missing Hat by Li Chen 

The Grimmelings by Rachael King 

Children of the Rush # 3 by James Russell 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
I am joined now by Joe McKenzie.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
Good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Now, as we do at this time every year, you
very kindly put together a list of fabulous books which
could be great gifts or perfect for the Christmas stocking,
and we're going to start off with kids books. And
I imagine this was quite a hard category to narrow
down to five.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
They're all hard, but yes, finding the best five kids
books well, actually it's a very subjective opinion, but five
terrific kids books which we would like to recommend.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
I'm not surprised that you're starting with Lisa Carrington Chase
as a Champion.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
It's a lovely book. It starts off the story of
Lisa's extraordinary career and how she got into it as
a child. And the thing that I love about the
book is not just the illustrations, which are terrific, but
the way that it talks about how she set goals
for herself and tried to overcome the anxiety and the
fear that she had about going out and competing. And

(01:07):
it doesn't once anywhere mentioned the Olympics. It's just four
kids who have a dream who might want to achieve something,
and it gives some guidance and insight as to how
she went about it and what they could do some.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
She's a book for everybody. Really, What else have you
got on the list?

Speaker 3 (01:23):
I've got kat Quinn's latest book. Listeners may know her
from her series of books on Kooi Koue the Kiwi,
and her new one is called Koui's Fluey Hooey because
Kooe's chick named Hui is sick and she tries all
sorts of things to try and get Hue better. She
enlists the help of fantails and kakaiki and tuatata and

(01:45):
other great New Zealand indigenous important species and all the
way through who he just keeps sneezing and not getting better.
And then at the end of the book there's a
bit of a surprise when Hue does get better. But
guess what, mum gets sick. Now this looks like a
gorgeous picture book, so it's the Younger Younger to There's
are Lisa, Carrington and Cook.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Tell me about Detective Beans Case of a Missing Hat.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
This was one of our favorite books of the year. Actually,
it's probably for kids around the ages of eight plus
and it's a lovely graphic story, graphic novel done by
a local Lee Chen is her name, and I believe
it's going to be the first in a series which
we're thrilled about. And it's the story of Detective Beans,
who is a cat whose hat has gone missing and

(02:32):
he needs to go and find his hat and hunt
down what's happened to it, but not before he's had
some ice cream and he needs to be able to
do that before mum calls him home for bed, and
he discovers that there's a conspiracy around this missing hat
of his and he sets out to sort it out.
It's really lovely. Now.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Rachel King is an absolutely fabulous author and writer and
she has made the list as well.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yeah, Rachel King has written some terrific stuff and her
latest book, which is called The Gremlins.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Have I said that, Yes, I believe so.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
What she said about this book was that she wanted
to help kids develop a love of both words and
adventure and that's what she's done. And it's got lots
of key ingredients in it which for a young reader
are really quite captivating. In some ways. It's a horse
story because the family at the heart of it owner
trekking business, so they keep a stable of horses. There's

(03:26):
a young girl called Ala. Her family appear in some
way to be cursed. Her grandfather was killed, her father
disappeared some years ago. They've been accused of a bit
of witchcraft. They live in the South Island. But there
is some Scottish influence here and coming from Dunedin myself,
that maybe one reason why it resonated with me. But
it's a lovely story and the words are so important,

(03:49):
and each chapter begins with a Scottish word which is
explained and then the story unfolds from there. As I said,
it's captivating. Tell me about Children of the Rush Number three, Yeah,
James Russell is a local writer. Again, this would be
for kids from about the ages of seven up think.
This is the third book in the series. It started
off in Gabriel's Gully and Otago during the time of

(04:12):
the gold Rush. In this book, three three kids find
themselves moved from Gabriel's Gully to Hoka Tika, but the
malevolent forces that were giving them all sorts of trouble
back in Gabriel's Gully turn up on their doorstep.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Oh sounds mysterious now, of course, been number three. Grandparents
need to check whether the kids are into this. You
might need to get one and two.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
That's a very good idea. Here we go.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
And Anna James as well.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
Yes, Anna James wrote a series called Pages and Co
which was terrific and very successful. Her new book is
the start of what I believe is going to be
a four book series called Chronicles of weather Why subtitled
The Age of Enchantment, and it's a book about how,
on the first day of Spring, the magic of every
thirteen year old child in weather Why is assessed and

(04:59):
if kids have magic, then they get to go to
a special school called thistle Down Academy where they study enchantment.
And it is chanting, brilliant collection of books there, Joan.
We're going to make sure that we get that list
up on our website NEWSTALKZB dot co dot MZ forward
slash Sunday, because I know a lot of people are
going to go, what was that third book?

Speaker 2 (05:17):
You mean? We will make sure it is there for you.
We'll talk next week.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
For more from the Sunday session, with Francesca Rudkin. Listen
live to News Talks AB from nine am Sunday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio