Poetry & Anthologies

From award-winning, bestselling author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five comes a powerful YA novel in verse about a boy who is wrongfully incarcerated. Perfect for fans of the Noughts & Crosses series and The Hate U Give.

When you first told me that you gave me the name of our tupuna so that I would be strong enough to hold our family inside my ribcage, I believed you. Here you are. Here is how I saw you, trapped in your own amber. Now it's time for you to believe me. Toku Papa is a bo...ok that serves as a map of survival for Maori growing up outside of their papakaika. These poems look at how we take the knowledge we are given by our ancestors and hide it beneath our tongues for safekeeping. They show us how we live with our tupuna, without ever fully understanding them. This book encompasses a journey spanning generations, teaching us how to keep the home fires burning within ourselves when we have forgotten where our homes are. But have our homes forgotten us? 'This book sings a song of connection and disconnection. It moves between the light and the dark as all living things must, and it stretches back to our ancestors and forward to our descendants, while exploring the difficulties of loving those who we should be closest to. This is a searching and generous collection of toikupu that slow time to a trickle just to reach in and tap directly into the wairua.' -essa may ranapiri 'Ruby is an incredible poet. Her poetry is utterly deft and agile, warm and heartbreaking.' -Tayi Tibble, Toi Maori Aotearoa
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A kitten brimming with magic meets an adventure-seeking girl and turns her everyday life upside down. But will Trixie's family allow Midnight to stay?

In this collection of poetry Glenn Colquhoun writes to the young people he works with at the Horowhenua Youth Health Service. Tender and poignant, wondering and wry, here his words become small scissors, knives, bandages and balms. Gathered together they represent an inventory of... one doctor's consultations taken home, responses to those moments he might have woken in the middle of the night and wished he had said better.
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Drawing on her own family history, this is a story from Jackie French about education in Colonial Australia - and how women once had to fight for their right to it. January 1901 Sharks circle the stranded ship as Hannah and her family head to a new home in the newly formed nation... of Australia. Hannah's father has a new post as the schoolmaster in a larger school in northern NSW, where the school's wealthy patron, a sugar planter called Mr Harris, will give the family a life of comfort and the best society. But secrets lurk in this subtropical paradise. From the moment Hannah's mother rebels against her husband's refusal to let Jamie, the Pacific Islander boy who rescues them from their shipwreck, into his school, the facade crumbles. Mr Harris's fortune is built on slavery and the whip. And the new Federal government's first law demands that all Pacific islanders - even those born in Australia - be deported. If Mr Harris learns of the secret school that Hannah's mother is running, it will mean ruin, violence, and possibly even death. Hannah and Jamie must fight for Jamie's right to stay in the land he loves, and for their rights to education and equality. Can the friendship and love of two young people win against such prejudice and power? Based on the lives of Jackie French's great-grandparents and grandmothers who taught - and fought - for equal education and the rights of all Australians, no matter what their background or the colour of the skin, this story shows us how the bravery and the battles of the past can give us courage for the challenges of today.
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