The Haystack

Junior Fiction Finalist

The Haystack
Jack Lasenby
HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN 978-1-86950-852-4 pb RRP $20.50
Target age 8+

It’s the 1930s Depression, and Maggie’s growing up without a mother in the little Waikato dairying township of Waharoa.

Maggie has to make do with her father’s friends, neighbours, and an old biddy who should know better but can’t help herself.

Maggie torments the boy down the road, sets fire to the dunny, helps with half the district to build a haystack, and sees the tragedy of unemployment. Along the way, Maggie makes new friends, and receives kindness and help in learning what a girl needs to know.

Jack Lasenby grew up in Waharoa and lives in Wellington, spinning yarns and telling tales to delight children of all ages. A former deer culler, possum trapper, teacher, editor of the School Journal, and lecturer at Wellington Teachers’ College, he now writes full-time. He often writes of heartland New Zealand: of small towns, farms, and bush, stories that are observant, erudite and witty. His last book, Old Drumble, won the 2009 New Zealand Post Junior Fiction Award.