as pictured, mister pip by lloyd jones softcover, 222 pages. RRP $35 Montana Medal - 2007 Montana NZ Book Awards. Shortlisted for the 2007 Man Booker, and Winner 2007 Commonwealth Writers Prize.

This prizewinning novel by New Zealand author Jones is an eloquent homage to the power of storytelling. Thirteen-year-old Matilda is at a loss to understand the violence that has torn apart her tropical island. Her village, caught in the cross fire of the conflict between government troops and local armed rebels, has lost its teachers. The only white man to stay behind, the eccentric Mr. Watts, married to a local woman who is generally thought to be mad, takes over the post as teacher and begins to read to the class from his favorite novel, Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. Initially flummoxed by the meanings of such alien words as frost and moors, Matilda and her classmates soon become entirely riveted by the story and identify so heavily with the orphan Pip that Victorian England becomes more real to them than their own hometown. Provided with firsthand evidence of the power of imagination, Matilda increasingly sees it as a way to survive and even thrive amid the chaos of civil war.