Bulletin

Before a week ago I'd never even heard of the books I ended up lending and buying. But before a week ago I had never been to the Whangarei Library Character Hunt either. And wow, just wow. I think I enjoyed it as much- if not more- than my two kids (aged 5 and 7). The characters (or perhaps I should say actors playing those character) were absolutely brilliant.

Part of the fun was working out which characters you had found and convincing them to stamp your sheet and as there were many characters from recently released books.

There were quite a few we hadn't heard of before.

They were ALL fantastic but there were three/four who stood out for my kids and I. They were the duo of the caterpillar and the chameleon (hil-LAR-ious), Violet (who was weird and insanely interesting in her strangeness) and Jimmy Grimholt.Now, Jimmy Grimholt is from the book ‘Monkey Boy’, a story which we’d never heard of before and so had immense trouble guessing. I’m not sure I can express just HOW fantastic he was in portraying his character.

He was SO good in fact we hunted down the book ‘Monkey Boy’ and borrowed it immediately. My daughter and I are now reading it together at nights. A few days later I bought ‘I am not a Caterpillar’ and ‘Night Vision’ (Violet’s book) and spent the next few evenings reading that. They are great books and your team of actors did such a remarkable job- I can barely stop gushing about it. So if the authors themselves don’t thank you for getting their books read, I am here to say thank you for doing such an amazing job in bringing these characters and stories not only to our attention but to life.Nga mihi mahana, Toni Pivac