Kirjahaku

Few people have lived a more adventurous life than Timaru's early pioneer George Richard Meredith. He goes to sea at eleven, falls from the rigging, and rescues a princess. Then he is shipwrecked and lost at sea for a week. During this time, he and fourteen other men in the longboat, narrowly escape death by eating his beloved dog. He is rescued and shipwrecked once more. He signs on with a ship to America but is bullied and runs away when it reaches the port. After more sea adventures he arrives in Australia. Gold fever is running high, so George and a mate run off to the gold fields. Things are going well until George has trouble with his eyes and a doctor advises him to go to New Zealand for his health's sake. When he arrives in Lyttleton he finds work chopping wood in Kaiapoi, and helps build the Sumner Road. After a series of jobs pit-sawing, he meets a girl on the Lyttleton docks and marries her the next day. He shifts his elderly parents to Timaru, and continues carving a living out of the bush near Geraldine. Later in life he builds the first lime kiln in Kakahu, and attempts to float a coal mining venture. In 1913 at seventy-nine he leaves us a written record of his life. This first-hand account of the nineteenth century as seen by George Richard Meredith, is a slice of maritime history, and a fascinating glimpse into early New Zealand.

Back in 1995, Wendy Hamilton did not want to home-school her children. But concern for her child made her launch into the less travelled path of home-schooling. For the next twenty years, Wendy home-schooled her four children from kindergarten through to college. During that time, Wendy discovered home-schools must function differently to institutional schools to avoid burning out the mothers. Although Wendy is not superwoman and often struggled with energy drains, this low-stress method of home-schooling enabled her to follow her interests while she trained her children. Forget five hours of schoolwork a day, twenty minutes (or less) of instruction combined with good mothering is all it takes. In this easy-to-read book, Wendy lays out a simple but highly effective method of teaching and answers common questions like: How do you deal with the roller-coaster of emotions home-schooling brings in its wake? What works and doesn't work? How do you juggle housework, schoolwork, pre-schoolers and your own needs without going crazy? And because a home-school is not a school in a home, Wendy paints a picture of a typical home-schooling day so we can see the difference. A must-read for women struggling with home-schooling through the coronavirus.

Wolfgang Schmitt and his friend Billy K ster from the freighter the Pfalz, are captured in Melbourne three hours after Britain declares war on Germany, and find themselves packed off to a derelict gaol in the rundown village of Berrima. The gaol, notorious for its sadistic history and ghosts, quickly earns the name Castle Foreboding when eighty-nine mariners have to sleep in cells on the stone floor. But it takes more than a miserable start to daunt these storm weathered sailors. This remarkable story is based on a series of real events that took place during World War One. While the sword devoured Europe, the internees built huts along the river, made boats, had a theatre and orchestra, and turned the surrounding countryside into a Garden of Eden. When six of the wives and their children take up residence in the village, the sailors make toys for Christmas, paint Easter eggs, and decorate the courthouse for the Machotka baby's christening. It is not all fun and games, however, spirits lag as the war drags on and loved ones die. There is a fight, a couple of escapes, and the Battle of Pooh. Through the ups and downs, the moonshiners keep turning their jam rations into booze while others smuggle whisky over the prison wall at night. As the war progresses hatred rises, but in a two-mile spot radiating from the gaol, Australians, Germans, and guards, forget they are enemies. Together they rescue a horse from a cistern, save the village from bush fires, and grow giant tomatoes. One of the few positive stories of the first world war. The Berrima POW Camp gives new meaning to the term the Great War and is a badge of honour on Australia's sleeve.