Meet Jean Batten, the brave, trail-blazing and glamorous aviator, who strove to set new records in death-defying solo flights across the world.
David Hill (Author)
David Hill is a prolific and highly regarded New Zealand writer,
playwright, poet, columnist and critic. Best known for his highly
popular and award-winning body of work for young people, ranging
from picture books to teenage fiction, his novels have been
published all around the world and translated into several
languages, and his short stories and plays for young people have
been broadcast here and overseas.
Born in Napier, New Zealand, David studied at Victoria University
of Wellington and became a high-school teacher, teaching both in
New Zealand and the UK. In 1982 he became a full-time writer and
his first novel for teenagers, See Ya, Simon (1992), about a boy
with muscular dystrophy, was shortlisted for major awards in New
Zealand and the UK and won the 1994 Times Educational Supplement
Award for Special Needs. An enduringly popular novel used as a
class text in high schools all over New Zealand, in 2002 it was
awarded the Storylines Gaelyn Gordon Award for a Much-loved
Book.
David has published more than 40 titles over the past three
decades. His most recent junior novels include My Brother's War
(2012), which in 2013 won the Junior Fiction Award and the
Children's Choice Junior Fiction Award in the New Zealand Post Book
Awards for Children and Young Adults, the LIANZA Librarian's Choice
Award and was listed as a Storylines Notable Junior Fiction book, a
White Raven and an IBBY Honour book. This was followed by novels
Brave Company (2014) - also a Storylines Notable Junior Fiction
book; The Deadly Sky (2015); and Enemy Camp (2016), about an
incident which took place at the Featherston Japanese
prisoner-of-war camp in 1943. It won the 2016 HELL Children's
Choice Award for Junior Fiction.
David is also the author of a number of critically acclaimed
picture books. These include First to the Top (2015), an account of
the life of Sir Edmund Hillary and a 2016 Storylines Notable
Picture Book, and Speed King (2016), about the
world-record-breaking achievements of Burt Munro; both of which are
illustrated by Phoebe Morris.
In 2004 David was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit
and in 2005 he was awarded the Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal,
acknowledging his significant contribution to children's literature
in New Zealand.
He lives in New Plymouth with his wife Beth, and juggles his many
writing projects with numerous school visits, leading professional
development for teachers, mentoring new and emerging writers and
tutoring creative writing.
Phoebe Morris (Illustrator)
As a child, Phoebe Morris always dreamed of becoming a zoo keeper
and working with animals. However, persistent allergies meant that
she ended up drawing them instead. As an adult, Phoebe now spends
her time drawing a range of things - either on paper, or on her
custom PC named 'the Millennium Falcon'.
In 2015 Phoebe collaborated with author David Hill on the acclaimed
picture-book biography of Sir Edmund Hillary, First to the Top.
Unanimously praised for the quality of the illustrations, it was
named a 2016 Storylines Notable Picture Book. In a review for the
NZ Listener, Ann Packer wrote, 'Wellingtonian Phoebe Morris makes a
stunning debut as an illustrator . . . From the arresting cover,
through cameos of his younger life to haunting, other-worldly
mountainscapes, Morris's style gives the old story a cool new
edge.'
A second title with David Hill, Speed King, about Burt Munro and
his legendary world-record-breaking Indian motorcycle, was
published in August 2016.
Phoebe is also the illustrator of the Frankie Potts junior fiction
series by Juliet Jacka.
Find out more about Phoebe's work at http-//phoebe.design/
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