The Biggest Kiwi in the World product reviews

What impressed Mr Nine and me the most about this book was the way it is packed from cover to cover with information. It starts with a picture quiz on the inside front cover. This is fun as it involves a "treasure hunt" that encourages the reader to leaf through the book and find the answers. If there are some that are elusive, they can all be found on the inside back cover. The only white space in the whole book is on the page opposite the title page!

The Biggest Kiwi in the World is especially relevant for Mr Nine as his Nana actually lives in Dorset. The family is planning to visit her later in the year, so the book has inspired him to ask his mother if they can spend one day looking for the Kiwi. She not only agreed, but added that Nana might even come too! That will be something to look forward to.

The drawings appealed to Mr Nine. He is quite good at art; he has an eye for colour and liked the way most of the pictures were drawn in sepia - a medium he now plans to try out for himself. He spent some time admiring the double page layout where the surveyor is being given the kiwi sketch to work from (pages 16 and 17), examining the finer details to work out how he could reproduce them himself.

Before he read this book, Mr Nine had assumed that being a soldier in the "old days" meant fighting with guns in the trenches, or being a crew member on a war plane or battleship. It was a revelation to him to discover that a group of soldiers could become artists! He thought at first that the story was fiction, but when he learned it was based on fact, he could no longer doubt it. In fact, he said he would now like to meet Danny to thank him for rescuing the Kiwi.

At the end of the text proper there are several pages of detailed information which Mr Nine found absorbing. There is a map of the site where the restored Kiwi can be found, a timeline tracing the history of the Kiwi from when it was first cut, biographical details of the men who "built the kiwi", and an assortment of relevant photos.

This story book tells an important part of the history of New Zealand forces abroad in wartime. As such, it is entertaining and easy for a younger child to access. But it is also a reference book for the young historian, bringing to life what it might have meant to be a soldier over a hundred years ago. The photographs show men in uniforms, and there is a list of items the soldiers would have had in their packs. They must have been extremely heavy!