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Wee Jack Baines is tired of living in his brother's shadow. Unlike his brother Robert, Jack is no good at sports or rabbit-shooting, and is not popular at school. Luckily for him, though, his Uncle Onslow notices that, as well as being short, Jack has a gift with horses: perfect for a jockey! And so he arranges an apprenticeship for Jack with a trainer in Napier. Determined to prove to his family that he can be as good as Robert, Jack sets out with high hopes and dreams of success - so at last he can be called just Jack. Instea... read more

Press here. That's right. Just press the yellow dot...and turn the page. This irresistible picture book is ideal for sharing with children and has created a sensation worldwide

In June 1941, Nazi troops march on Leningrad and surround it. Hitler's plan is to shell, bomb, and starve the city into submission. Most of the cultural elite are evacuated early in the siege, but Dmitri Shostakovich, the most famous composer in Russia, stays on to defend his city, digging ditches and fire-watching. At night he composes a new work. But after Shostakovich and his family are forced to evacuate, only Karl Eliasberg - a shy and difficult man, conductor of the second-rate Radio Orchestra - and an assortment of musicians... read more

"I love doubters: of a truly honest doubter I have great hope." Printer, botanist and missionary, William Colenso was a nineteenth-century maverick, a true original. He protested at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, arguing that Maori did not fully understand its implications. He became a troubled conscience during the white-hot period of colonisation, maintaining his dissident voice throughout his career. Peter Wells refreshes our vision of this awkward, highly talented man, who lost his family after the church expelled him ... read more

Too many secrets, buried for too long. Becs is a sassy 12-year-old drama queen who strikes a bargain with her mother. She'll spend a few months away from home while her new step-family renovates an elegant old house in the country. When it's sold, some of the money will pay her fees at the same private school that all her friends will be attending. But as usual, she hasn't listened properly. They aren't going to live in the old mansion - they'll be in a shack in the bush, with long drops and eight-legged wildlife! Becs is not impr... read more

In 1984, architect Scott Warren comes to China on a scholarship to study Daoist buildings, just at the time when the liberalisation policies of Deng Xiaoping are unfolding and Chinese people are experiencing new freedoms. Twenty-three years later he returns, to honour his dead wife's request to take her ashes back to China. He encounters a country that has been propelled into international commerce, culture and politics that has Western-style prosperity yet continued human rights restrictions and one-party rule. In this complexity,... read more