ELSIE LOCKE
(17 August 1912 – 8 April 2001)
Elsie Locke’s writing career became firmly established when in the 1960s, she began contributing to the New Zealand School Journal (published by the School Publication Branch of the Department of Education). She was commissioned by the School Publication Branch to write a series of historical booklets from 1962 to 1968, designed to educate children about New Zealand’s social history. It was while writing these that Locke realised her lack of knowledge about Māori language, culture, history, and spirituality. This led her to study the language,and incorporate biculturalism as a central feature of her writing long before it was fashionable to do so. According to The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, she expressedthe Māori point of view “with sympathy and insight in novelsthat in this respect were in advance of general perceptionsand political correctness”. Elsie Locke was one of New Zealand’s best known children’swriters and is the author of many books including The Runaway Settlers (originally published by Puffin in 1965), The Boy with the Snowgrass Hair (originally published by PriceMilburn, 1983) and Joe’s Ruby (originally published by CapeCatley, 1995).
Journey Under Warning - eBook
About the Book:
One Tree House brings this much-loved, award-winning and historic children's book to a new generation of readers.
When fifteen-year-old Gibby Banks leaves the family farm to work as a camp boy with a survey party, he doesn’t know that he is going on a ‘journey under warning’.
But he is puzzled by the strange behaviour of his guide, the Scotsman Will Morrison, and even before they reach Nelson where they will board ship he senses the echoes of threat surrounding their expedition into unknown country. From the talk of the surveyors, and of whalers and missionaries at Port Underwood, he pieces together the truth: the land they are to survey, the Wairau Plain, will not be yielded lightly by the Māori who claim it. When the expedition proceeds despite the warnings of the chief, Te Rauparaha, Gibby soon finds himself caught up in a dispute which becomes dangerously explosive.Our new Classic e-collection supports our literary history, classroom learning and reading for pleasure.
Originally published by Oxford University Press, 1983.
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