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Officiële naam: Stephanie Matuku
Pseudoniemen en naamsvarianten: Steph Matuku
Geboortedatum: 20th century
Geslacht: female
Nationaliteit: Aotearoa / New Zealand
Geboorteplaats: Kaitaia, Far North District, North Island, New Zealand
Woonplaatsen: New Plymouth, Taranaki, North Island, New Zealand
Prijzen en onderscheidingen: New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults: Wright Foundation Esther Glen Junior Fiction (2019) - shortlisted finalist
Korte biografie: Steph Matuku is an award-winning writer from Taranaki, New Zealand. She spent fifteen years writing radio advertising, before deciding to branch out and write pieces that were longer than thirty seconds. She has a special love for writing stories for children and young adults and has written for film, magazines and theatre. In 2016, Steph won a place on the Māori Literature Trust’s writing incubator programme ‘He Papa Tupu’, and wrote her first fantasy novel for young people, Flight of the Fantail, to be published by Huia Publishers. She recently won a Pikihuia award for another novel extract. She has two children, a messy house and lots of books.

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Whetū Toa and the Magician door Steph Maketu

Whetū and her Mum move from their city apartment to a little cottage in the country. Her mother has a new job as personal assistant to the Mighty Mikaere, a magician who travels the world performing for adoring audiences. Whetū becomes the animal keeper, looking after a golden ram, three lazy pigs, talking horses and a hypersensitive bull. Unfortunately there is also the magician's stage assistant – a haughty white rabbit called Errant who is overconfident in his own magical abilities - and who has a result has created a carnivorous lamb who ate the rest of the flock. Errant hasn’t been able to undo his magic and rather than confess to the magician, goes into hiding. A Royal Performance is looming, and Whetū must stand in as the magician’s assistant. Things are going well until Errant returns to cause mischief and mayhem with the carnivorous lamb. Can Whetū save the King? Will Errant be punished? And will Whetū and her mother keep their new jobs? It’s great to see a Māori girl and solo parent in an Aotearoa setting. Whetū and her mother are both strong, hard-working and determined characters. The black and white illustrations by Katharine Hall add to this quirky story and the cover is very attractive. With short chapters that would suit 8-11 year olds this story is great for independent reading, but also entertaining and humorous enough for adults to read aloud.… (meer)

Gemarkeerd

DebbieMcCauley | Jul 12, 2019 |

Flight of the Fantail door Steph Matuku

Set in the remote bush of Aotearoa New Zealand, a busload of high school students suffer a major crash before the wreckage floats down a river towards a waterfall. Just a few of the teens survive, but their phones don't work, and some of them start having nosebleeds and behaving erratically. Days pass, and still Search & Rescue haven't arrived. When they witness another survivor shot by 'rescuers' they must figure out what is going on, and why? I didn't know what genre this was when I started reading! At first I thought it was a teen survival story, then things got weird and the body count started rising. The character development is fabulous. This is a wonderful page turner which reminded me of Lord of the Flies (William Golding), Tomorrow When the War Began (John Marsden) and books by New Zealand authors Des Hunt and Lee Murray. Highly recommended.… (meer)

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DebbieMcCauley | 1 andere bespreking | Jun 20, 2019 |

Flight of the Fantail door Steph Matuku

A bus full of high school kids is headed off to camp when there's an accident: the bus plummets into the river and only some of the kids escape with their lives and various injuries. This starts off like it could be a very Kiwi Lord of the Flies, and then things take a left turn. Or two.

It's a bit more multi-pov than I prefer - suits the survival/mystery-focused story but means we don't get really in-depth into any of the characters. But an easy read full of cool ideas and, though it doesn't seem incomplete in any way I'd happily read about what happens next too.… (meer)

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zeborah | 1 andere bespreking | May 18, 2019 |

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