Midnight Mission, Laura Shallcrass, Beatnik Publishing, 2022
Kunekune and Hare sleep under a peach tree at night but they are getting more and more suspicious. Each morning they wake up to discover more peaches have gone missing. They decide something must be done and set off to find the culprit. The sweetly unfolding story has a cunning twist!
Moonlight Mission is a perfect story for these times – it is a story of community and friendship. It celebrates the power of sharing, whether food or stories. It seems extra fitting to read when I live in West Auckland, an area that has been smashed and battered by floods and a cyclone. It has been a time of despair and ruin but it has also been a time of communities coming together and sharing. Food, yes, but also stories and muscle power, beds, spare rooms, appliances.
Reading children’s books that engage with who and how we are, and who and how we might be, is so very important.
Laura Shallcrass has a light touch with words so her story flows beautifully. Her trademark colour palette is an appealing mix of blues and browns that capture a moonlight night perfectly. The characters are as alive on the page as they are in the story. This is a gorgeous book that I will continue to treasure.
Laura Shallcrass is an artist and author who works from her home in the hills near Queenstown, New Zealand, where she lives with her husband and children, along with an ever-growing zoo of furry friends (three horses: Giddy, who is enormous but kind, Taffy the pony, and Cash, who is overexcited and likes to party) plus, Kota the Labrador, and Frida, the whippet. Laura’s first book, Hare & Ruru, won the Russell Clark Award for Best Illustrated Book at the 2021 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. It was also shortlisted for the NZ Booklovers Children’s Picture Book Award.
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