We Live in New Zealand

by John Ball

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0531047814
• ISBN13: 9780531047811
• Release Date: December 1984
• Publisher: Bookwrights Press
• Length: 64 Pages
• Age Range: 8 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 7

Customer Reviews

Interviews with 28 New Zealanders about their daily lives

"We live in New Zealand" is a different sort of geography book for young students in that it offers first-person interviews with people from various occupations and ages from across New Zealand, from shepherd Matthew Parsons to Elwyn Thomas, a pipeline worker, each provided in a two-page spread. Consequently, it makes for an interesting supplemental volume to your standard juvenile geography books about New Zealand that look at the history and government, agriculture and industry, cultures and geography of the country. There is a list of facts in the back that touch on some of these elements, but author John Ball's purpose here is to let young readers find out what it is like to live in New Zealand today. Consequently, "We Live in New Zealand" offers the stories of a schoolgirl and a teacher of Maori arts, an artist and a charter-vessel skipper, an alpine guide and a traffic officer, with 28 interviews in all, providing a nice cross-section of the people and occupations of New Zealand. Each is accompanied by photographs of the interviewee along with where they work and live, taken by Chris Fairclough. Final note: I wanted to mention that there is a notation at the end of one of the chapters that the young person interviewed was tragically killed which at work in the New Zealand bush. Stumbling across that might be upsetting to some young readers (given personal circumstances), so teachers might want to take that into account before assigning this particular volume.