Best Mates

New Holland, 2014
Illustrated by Bob Kerr
ISBN 9781869664114

The three young soldiers in the story are best friends from school, and they leave New Zealand together to go and fight at Gallipoli. Landing first in Egypt, they travel by ship to Anzac Cove and dig into trenches to fight the Turkish troops holding the peninsula. Conditions are tough and Joe gets sick, but his mates help him off on the hospital ship. Then Harry is fatally wounded and his burial has to take place on the cliff-top, away from the snipers. Many years later, the friends are reunited when the two old veterans fly to Gallipoli and lay poppies on Harry’s grave. The illustrated factual text on pages 30-31 provides extra information about the events pictured in the story.

The story behind the book

Best Mates is my first picture book and it was a privilege to have it illustrated by Bob Kerr. Bob had previously illustrated a School Journal story for me about Paddy the wanderer, the small dog who made his home on the Wellington wharves in the 1930s. Because we live in the same city, I was able to pop down to his studio and watch his amazing illustrations taking shape. We talked over the story together and I knew that Bob really understood what I was trying to say in it. He had been to Gallipoli himself, some years before, so he was very careful about getting the landscape exactly right. When we had the book launch, he brought along some of the original watercolours and everyone else was as bowled over by them as I was.