Every now and then, it’s a pleasure to be caught up in a rip-roaring adventure where there’s clear-cut good guys and bad ‘uns and no matter how implausible it all seems, you can’t put the book down even though you vowed several chapters back that it was time to turn out the light. James Russell’s The Dragon Defenders series is an apt example.

For five books (starting with The Dragon Brothers Trilogy), we have enjoyed the adrenaline-filled adventures of brothers Flynn and Paddy and, since Book Two, their pal Briar. The boys live a free-range life on an island which one book reviewer (Louise Ward, from Wardini Books) rightly describes as both idyllic and dangerous.

Idyllic because it’s largely an existence living off the fruits of the forest and sea where the days are spent swimming, sailing, hiking, bush crashing, caring for wild animals and riding the family pony with little intrusion from the fraught rhythms and routines of the “real world”; dangerous because, well, it’s home to fire-breathing dragons which the brothers and their family have kept secret.

That is until a cookie-cutter bad guy, The Pitbull, turns up and tries to steal the dragons for his own nefarious purposes, forcing the brothers and Briar, his niece, into an all-out war to defend and save the dragons. There are shades of the kinds of books we adults of a certain age devoured – The Famous Five, Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators, Willard Price’s Adventure series, The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew – with a strangely comforting innocence in the characters and the writing despite the rather serious situations.

Russell has sure-footedly extended the brothers’ ambit to the urban jungle and introduced them to the sort of technology – mobile phones, the internet, even television – young readers at home know and love. Russell has even cleverly ensured those who might prefer a device to a book are caught up by including animations accessed by way of an AR Reads app which add an extra layer to the books (which can be read without any new-fangled tech).

In Book Five, The Grand Opening, an earthquake, volcanic eruption and tsunami have forced the boys off their island into their grandparents’ city home and – quelle horreur – to school. In uniforms! Here they meet digital native Beth, whose use of tech combined with the boys’ and Briar’s old(er)-fashioned derring-do methods, must be employed to save the dragons from The Pitbull. Ever so subtly, Russell references generational divides – climate change protests spring to mind – as The Pitbull prepares to open Dragon World where the captive dragons are to be the main attractions. Can four kids, a falcon, and old-fashioned grit and determination stop him? The answer is probably predictable, but it’s a fun ride getting there.

About 18 months ago, my youngest, now 11, decided she was old enough to read alone and didn’t want mum reading a chapter (or four) to her at night. It broke my heart. But when The Dragon Defenders: The Grand Opening was released, she immediately said we should resume the bedtime ritual because, after all, I would want to find out what happened, too, and might need her input. So, we read the book together, revelled in the numerous thrills and spills and admired the pluck and resolve of the spirited young protagonists.

A few days later, I heard her telling one of the family dogs how much she looks like Coco, Flynn and Paddy’s dog, and while there are no dragons where we live perhaps in summer they can go exploring the creek which edges our property: “maybe we’ll find some archaeology”.

The Dragon Defenders: The Grand Opening is a gripping read, with pace and heart, and it comes as no surprise that the series sits at seventh place on the Whitcoulls Kids’ Top 50 Books List with the Dragon Brothers Trilogy at number 12.

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The list, announced today, features 14 books from Aotearoa New Zealand with five of those - Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy, Aroha’s Way, The Dinky Donkey, Dragon Defenders and The Little Yellow Digger – in the top 10. Aroha’s Way, by award-winning author Craig Phillips, was published by Wildling Books just last year, and has rocketed into the top 50 in third place.

The picture book takes children on a journey through emotions associated with anxiety and provides simple tips and hints on how to manage them including movement and exercise, breathing, mindfulness and connecting with others. It also includes a section for parents and/or teachers, helping to open up conversations with children around these emotions.

Released in 2019, Aroha’s Way is in the top three of the Whitcoulls Kids’ Top 50 Books list. It is the highest placing for a book from Aotearoa New Zealand.

Given the uncertain times we’re in, it’s perhaps not surprising – and this is to take nothing away from Phillips and publisher Bex Lipp – that a book as relevant and reassuring as Aroha’s Way has done so well. Whitcoulls Book Manager Joan Mackenzie points out that books which encourage kids to explore their feelings are starting to make their presence felt in the Kids’ Top 50. (American cartoonist Raina Telgemeier’s autobiographical graphic novels Smile (34) and Guts (48) exploring themes of fitting in and facing fears, respectively, have also made the list.)

But it’s Harry Potter that takes the top spot once again with Lynley Dodd at two with Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy; Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man series is at four and Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series at number five. David Walliams is the most prolific author on the list, with six books, including two of his most recent, Slime and The World’s Worst Parents at 13 and 38 respectively.

Kiwi couple Mark and Rowan Sommerset have two titles in the Kids’ Top 50 – Baa Baa Smart Sheep (20) and I Love Lemonade (28); Sacha Cotter and Josh Morgan’s The Bomb, winner of the 2019 NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults’ Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Supreme Award and the Picture Book Award as well as a PANZ Book Design prize for Scholastic NZ Award for Best Children’s Book, is at 36. The Edmonds My First Cookbook makes an appearance (47).

The list is rounded out with classic books and “treasured favourites” including Roald Dahl and Dr Seuss’ stories with a handful of books from Aotearoa New Zealand – The Wonky Donkey and The Little Yellow Digger among them (The Wonky Donkey’s daughter, The Dinky Donkey, is in ninth place).

On the one hand, lists like these are useful because they help with buying decisions, especially for those purchasing books as gifts, but they can also have a limiting effect by reinforcing a certain set of popular books. You buy a book because it was on the list, you recommend it and when it comes to vote, you – and those who read it based on your recommendation – vote for it again.

So, it’s heartening to read that the make-up of the list has changed by more than 25 per cent from last year and that 13 new titles have made it on. What’s even better is that there has also been a surge in voting – up 2500 on 2019 – which Mackenzie credits to a greater focus on reading during the Covid-19 global pandemic. Now, then, could be the perfect time for some “you might also like” lists where readers who have devoured the books on the Top 50 list could be pointed toward some more great New Zealand books for children and young adults.

I’d start with the following:

• Joy Cowley’s Snake and Lizard series illustrated by Gavin Bishop

• Gavin Bishop’s Aotearoa: The New Zealand Story and Wildlife of Aotearoa

• Brian Falkner’s Battlesaurus Duology (and Cassie Clark Outlaw)

• Margaret Mahy’s picture books but Down the Dragon’s Tongue is a particular favourite. Hachette has reprinted and re-released Mahy’s junior fiction books, The Changeover, The Catalogue of the Universe and The Tricksters in recent years

• Des Hunt’s books which combine a love of science and the outdoors with compelling writing perfectly pitched at young New Zealanders

• David Hill’s junior fiction. Enemy Camp, for example, is a sensitive and eye-opening account of a chapter in our history that has been largely forgotten while Hill’s series, illustrated by Phoebe Morris, about well-known New Zealanders is well worth reading (even my 82 year old dad bought Taking the Lead: How Jacinda Ardern Wowed the World)

• Mandy Hager’s Singing Home the Whale

• Sherryl Jordan’s fantasy and historical fiction

• Donovan Bixley’s Much Ado About Shakespeare

• Māui and Other Māori Legends: 8 Classic Tales of Aotearoa by Peter Gossage

Reviewed by Dionne Christian

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