Poignant YA historical romance between a teen who runs away to fight in World War One, and his sweetheart back at home. Harry Wainwright is 17, not quite 18, but he can't wait to enlist for the Great War - so instead of going back to boarding school he runs away to war. He does this with the help of his sweetheart, Jessica. They are a wholesome Edwardian couple, steeped in all the respectable morality of their age. Both are in love with romance. Their letters begin idealistically and enthusiastically but gradually both young people learn of the horror of war and its associated cynicism. Rather than a depressing read, this is an interesting chronicle of the times and a charming portrayal of innocent love. Finalist in the Senior fiction category of the NZ Post Children's Book Awards 2003.

For seventeen-year-old Harry and his girlfriend Jessica, World War One is a crusade against the Hun. Harry enlists and is sent to Gallipoli, and Jessica leaves school and trains as a nurse. Their letters start out innocently but they are soon forced to face the brutal reality of war. Suggested level: secondary.

This collection seeks to move noncombatant perspectives to center stage, acknowledging their importance, destabilizing the primacy of the combatant, and explaining or undermining the staging of warfare as a singular and acontextual production.

HELP FOR YOUNG READERS WHO ARE STRUGGLING AND FOR THOSE WITH ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE. It is believed that twenty or more percent of New Zealand children and many from other countries, particularly boys, are leaving formal education sadly deficient in the literary skills essential for normal living: without being able to read road directions or the instructions on a bottle of medicine. PART ONE of this book and the accompanying practice pages in "KEYS TO READING" has proved, with regular use, to be of great assistance to many young readers who are struggling to overcome a setback in their progress and has enabled them to become confident and fluent readers. For parents who are seeking desperately for clear guidance as to how they may help their children this program will provide a simple and effective plan to follow. PART TWO provides a simple outline of English grammar both for students who need some help in an easily understood form and for those with English as a second language. There is also help with written expression, spelling, and vocabulary. An extensive list of idioms should prove especially useful to those with English as a second language. Brian Elder is a graduate of Otago University, with a BA degree, majoring in English and trained as a teacher at Dunedin Teachers' College. He has taught all primary school grades, with most teaching at the Intermediate level, and was for many years a deputy principal at an Intermediate School. Apart from teaching his main interest has been organizing and leading Christian holiday camps for pre-teens, spending thirty years, during school vacations, as Camp Director of Christian youth camps Brian has always had a real concern for disadvantaged children and the Keys to Reading program has arisen from a perceived need to provide some practical help for boys and girls who have been struggling in this area.

Boys and Girls in No Man's Land examines how the First World War entered the lives and imaginations of Canadian children. Drawing on educational materials, textbooks, adventure tales, plays, and Sunday-school papers, this study explores the role of children in the nation's war effort. Susan R. Fisher also considers how the representation of the war has changed in Canadian children's literature. During the war, the conflict was invariably presented as noble and thrilling, but recent Canadian children's books paint a very different picture. What once was regarded a morally uplifting struggle, rich in lessons of service and sacrifice, is now presented as pointless slaughter. This shift in tone and content reveals profound changes in Canadian attitudes not only towards the First World War but also towards patriotism, duty, and the shaping of the moral citizen.

A poignant young adult novel set in the goldfields of Otago during the 1860s goldrush. The story by an award-wining YA writer follows the lives of two young people, both very different, drawn to the goldfields for the same reason - they all hope to strike it rich. One of the main characters is a young Chinese girl, and the other a European boy. As well as being a plot-driven story, this book examines the cultural differences between these two. This provides interesting discussion points for New Zealand society today, where we still grapple with many of these same cultural problems. It shows how people are shaped by struggle and adversity and how the goldfields shaped our society in the nineteenth century, changing people who then went on to change their world.