David Hill author study

David Hill

David Hill is an award winning writer who lives in New Plymouth. He writes stories, novels, poems and plays for young adults. He’s written about 30 books in 8 languages and published in around 12 countries.

A person called Dr Libby Librick said, “As one of the country’s most versatile writers, David has helped many children develop a love of story and books, as well as tirelessly supporting teachers and librarians. His contribution to both literature and literacy in New Zealand continues to be outstanding.

Life:

He was born in 1942 in Napier. 

His first young adult novel (See ya, Simon) won the 1994 Times Educational Supplement Award for Special Needs. 

He won the 2002 Children's Literature Foundation Gaelyn Gordon Award for a Much-Loved Book, the 2003 LIANZA Esther Glen Medal, the 2013 NZ Post Junior Fiction Award, and the 2013 LIANZA Librarian’s Choice Award.

In his spare time he likes to do astronomy and archery. 

His books:

1970] The Seventies

[1981] Introducing Maurice Gee

[1984] On Poetry: Twelve Studies of Work by New Zealand Poets

[1986] Ours But to Do

[1987] Taranaki

[1988] The Boy

[1990] A Time to Laugh

[1990] The Games of Nanny Miro

[1992] See Ya, Simon 

[1994] A Day at a Time

[1995] Curtain Up

[1995] Kick Back

[1995] Take It Easy

[1995] The Winning Touch

[1996] Second Best

[1997] Fat, Four-eyed and Useless

[1999] Just Looking, Thanks

[2001] Right Where It Hurts 

[2001] The High Wind Blows

[2001] The Sleeper Wakes

[2001] The Name of the Game

[2002] Where All Things End

[2003] My Story: Journey to Tangiwai, The Diary of Peter Cotterill, Napier 1953 (New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children & Young Adults 2004 junior section finalist)

[2003] No Big Deal

[2003] No Safe Harbour (New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children & Young Adults 2004 young adult section finalist)

[2004] Coming Back (New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children & Young Adults 2005 young adult section finalist)

[2005] Bodies and Soul

[2005] Running Hot (New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children & Young Adults 2006 young adult section finalist)

[2006] Aim High

[2006] Hill Sides

[2006] How I met myself

[2007] Black Day

[2007] The Forgotten Children

[2007] Duet (Youth Book)

[2012] My Brother's War

[2014] The Deadly Sky

[2015] First to the Top: Sir Edmund Hillary’s Amazing Everest Adventure (winner of the New Zealand Book Awards for Children & Young Adults 2016 Children's Choice Award - Non-Fiction. Listed as a Storylines Notable Book for 2016)

[2016] Enemy Camp (finalist for the Esther Glen Junior Fiction Award and the Children's Choice Junior Fiction Award in 2016 New Zealand Book Awards for Children & Young Adults)

[2016] Speed King

[2017] Flight Path

[2019] Sky High: Jean Batten's Incredible Flying Adventures (New Zealand Book Awards for Children & Young Adults 2019 non-fiction section finalist)

Ascending WOTW

 This week for WOTW we did ascending. It was pretty easy because just before I did this we did maths, and some of the questions asked us to write the lengths or weights in ascending order.

My Brother's War prediction

 All the girls from my reading group have to do a novel study on a book called My Brother's War by David Hill. We had to predict things about the book from the front and back cover.

I think it will be a good book because my friend Lucy has read other books by David Hill and thinks they are good.

Water Qualty

 

We have been looking at water quality for the past few weeks. We went down to our creek to test the water!

The NZ land wars timeline

 This is a timeline about the New Zealand land wars.

It was kind of hard because I had to change the words to something different from the book we were getting the information from, otherwise, I would be plagiarising.

WOTW obnoxious

 Today for word of the week I did obnoxious. It was easy because I already sort of knew what it meant and the only hard part was finding a colour, so I wrote the word and coloured it a colour I found extremely unpleasant.

The Narrator Part 1

I wrote a scary story about a girl called Lucy. I was inspired to make it after listening to Something Scary on the way to West A Maths. There are going to be other parts to this.

The Narrator part 1

The Shandelear family moved into a new house. It was a mansion, with clean white walls and golden patterned wallpaper. They loved the place.

The real masterpiece of the house, you see, was the beautiful crystal chandelier. You’d think they wouldn’t want to have a chandelier after the… incident. 

In the Shandelear’s old home, there was also a large chandelier. One night, Emiline and Ashley, the mother and father, woke up to a loud squeaking noise. It seemed to be coming from the chandelier! They groggily walked outside their room to find the priceless hanging light was swinging violently. It suddenly fell, crashing onto the ground floor, leaving gaping holes in the ceiling and floor.

When they were repairing it, the first thing they had to do was get the chandelier out of the way. When one builder was moving it he caught sight of something. It was a shadowy figure with long, gnarled fingers and bright red eyes.

The builder screamed and told everyone what he had seen, but there was no point in telling any of the other builders. They had seen it too.

With no way to repair their house, it went into ruins and the family left.

Emiline and Ashley had one daughter, Lucy. On their first night at the new house, Lucy had a strange dream. She dreamed that she was swinging on their chandelier, and at the end she always saw the shadowy figure with it’s arms outstretched.

She thought she was dreaming about it because she was afraid of the figure, but the dreams continued.

After two weeks in the new house Lucy’s parents noticed that the chandelier was swinging every morning. Lucy overheard them talking about it, and decided it couldn’t have been her, because every morning she woke up back in her bed.

The swinging of the chandelier continued for then next week, so the parents decided to take action.

They set up a security camera facing the chandelier. 

When they woke up the next morning, they looked at the camera. As usual, the chandelier was swinging. After a few minutes of searching they finally found something. But it wasn’t what they expected . . .

Swinging from the chandelier was . . .    Lucy.

She suddenly dropped from the chandelier. She moved her head up and smiled at the camera. But it wasn’t a normal, sweet smile. It was an evil smile with shadows crossing her face. She didn’t look anything like herself.

Emiline and Ashley took Lucy to a paranormal investigator. She was tested on and watched. She also slept away from home to see if it stopped, which it didn’t. She was put into another house with a chandelier to see if it still happened.

Meanwhile, Lucy was having different dreams. Dreams of the figure with it’s arms outstretched, trying to claw her.

The figure finally managed to catch her. It gouged out her eyes and clawed her heart.

She was now fully possessed. 

She killed her family. She took the lives of the paranormal investigators. 

And then she disappeared.

She hasn’t been seen since.

So if you live in a house with a chandelier and it starts swinging… she’s coming for you.

Tick, tock, goes the clock, she will make you die

Tick, tock, goes the clock, beneath the ground you’ll lie

Tick, tock, goes the clock, open up the window

Tick, tock, goes the clock, she’s creeping down low

Tick, tock, goes the clock, swinging on the chandelier

Tick, tock, goes the clock, you wouldn’t know she’s there

Tick, tock, goes the clock, your face will turn blue

Tick, tock, goes the clock, ‘cause Lucy’s coming for you.

9 Times Tables song

For maths, we had to make a times tables song. I made mine with Lucy and Miro H and we chose the 9 times tables. We were going to hum music but we decided not to because Lucy thought it sounded bad and my recorder kept loading.

WOTW maturity

Today for WOTW I did maturity. It was kind of hard because I already knew what it meant but it was hard to describe.