The Horror of Hickory Bay by Gavin Bishop

The story of a bland family on a Canterbury beach and an amorphous beast seemed a bit coarse to me 25 years ago, but now I love the earthy monster (which has a new force in quakey times). Travelling as a Secondary Schools’ Art Adviser for the Southern Region, 1978. Gavin Bishop’s Horror of Hickory Bay has grown on me over the years. Planning and running National Art Education Conferences Examining National School Certificate, University Entrance and Bursary Art Examinations Curriculum writing for the Department of Education Gavin Bishop has been shortlisted for NZ book awards more times than any other author of any kind. It was Children's Book of the Year in 2018. The House that Jack Built (Scholastic 1999), which deftly combined traditional words with pictures illustrating the colonization of New Zealand, was Book of the Year in the 2000 New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards.ĪOTEAROA, The New Zealand Story (Penguin Random House 2017) traced the Maori and European history of Aotearoa for the last 65 million years. Others such as Katarina (Random House 1990) and Hinepau (Scholastic 1994) relate to his bi-cultural heritage. Stories that have an obvious Canterbury setting include Mrs McGinty and the Bizzare Plant (Oxford University Press 1981), Bidibidi (OUP 1982) and The Horror of Hickory Bay (OUP 1984). His distinctive ink and watercolour illustrations are a feature of stories that are sometimes traditional, sometimes original. Born in Invercargill, he spent his childhood in the remote railway settlement of Kingston on the shores of Lake Wakatipu. He has also written the libretti for two children’s ballets for the Royal New Zealand Ballet. As a picture book author and artist he has published 70 books that have been translated into twelve languages and won numerous awards. Gavin Bishop is a children’s writer of international, as well as local, reputation.

Ngati Pukeko, Ngati Awa, Ngati Mahuta, Tainui

The Horror of Hickory Bay by Gavin Bishop