Owl

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A dark shape hurtled out of the fog...The bird turned in a curving steep dive, aiming for Tama...The boy was being dragged beneath it, his feet barely brushing the tops of tussocks...Owl and Tama could hardly be more different. Owl has a lot to cope with. He's trying to get used to life without his Dad while helping his family run their struggling farm, All he wants is to escape by getting into archaeology and improve his climbing. And along comes Tama, a disgruntled city kid. Owl's family supposedly has to help him out. Tama won't say much, but Owl can tell he's full of aggro and resentment. The boys are set for a stand-off. Yet Tama's arrival coincides with Owl's discovery of some Maori cave drawings. Owl's interest in the rock art, and the tension between him and Tama, somehow unleash a disturbing malevolence from the past. Together they have set free the forces of the ancient myth of the Pouakai, a brutal man-eater bent on destruction. Owl and reluctant Tama must decode the story of the cave drawings so they can defeat the creature: to save themselves, Owl's family, and the local farmers. A wild, gripping novel that retells the Waitaha legend of the Puuakai.

Author Bio

Joanna Orwin is a writer for children and adults with a background in plant ecology.. Her fiction and non-fiction books share a focus on New Zealand's natural environment, Maori history and mythology, and European history. She won the Children's Book of the Year Award for The Guardian of the Land (1985). Her books for children are Ihaka and the Summer Wandering (1983), which was followed by Ihaka and the Prophecy (1984); The Guardian of the Land (1985); Watcher in the Forest (1987); and Tar Dragon (1997) and Out of Tune (Longacre, 2004) which was a finalist in the Young Adult Fiction Category for the 2005 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, and made the 2005 Storylines Notable Young Adult Fiction list. Joanna Orwin was the 2009 recipient of the University of Otago College of Education Children's Writing Fellowship.