This Way Up
By (Author) Lindsay Wood
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand)
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand)
13th May 2010
New Zealand
Young Adult
Fiction
Childrens / Teenage fiction: Action and adventure stories
Childrens / Teenage personal and social topics: Self-awareness and self-esteem
823.3
Short-listed for Storylines Notable New Zealand Books: Junior Fiction 2011
Paperback
160
Width 130mm, Height 200mm, Spine 9mm
120g
Cory is an overweight, shy young high-school student, who spends all his spare time playing CounterStrike on the computer. Concerned about Cory's weight and his isolation, his mum finally gives him an ultimatum: join a school sports team or broadband will be cancelled. Realizing that for once he cannot get his own way, Cory surfs the net to research the sports options on offer. Orienteering, he reads, can be "like a stroll in the park" - Cory's idea of adequate exercise. Match! But when Cory joins the school orienteering club, he finds quite a bit more than strolling is required. Competing alone in the back of beyond, Cory discovers he needs to learn to work with Nature if he is to win ...and indeed survive. So he harnesses all of his CounterStrike experience to become a "cunning runner" and try to finish the race against the odds. The title refers to the two vital pieces of information the orienteer needs to know: which way is North, and which way is up, something Cory has to learn in every sense of the word.
Lindsay Wood is a keen observer of human nature, a passionate advocate of the natural environment, and enjoys a range of outdoors activities, including orienteering. He has three adult children whom he delighted in introducing to the outdoors, and he loves seeing that pattern continue now that he has a grandchild in each island. Lindsay is an architect with a business that is active in commercial and residential architecture, and he divides his time between Nelson and Auckland. This Way Up is his first novel.