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Seal Boy, Ken Catran
Random House
Reviewed by Lindsay Wright (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

A ripping good yarn. Well-heeled Boston toff (14), is shanghaied by dastardly whalers and spirited off, before the mast, to the South Seas.

The hero, Emmett, escapes Kororareka (Russell these days) barely ahead of a Maori war party but ends up escaping the cooking pot for life in the fire – a sealing ship ... and these boys make the whalers (or the Maori...) look like pansies. He is stranded, without food or fire, on an island in the Chathams, befriends a seal family and is saved from a wintery death by food drops from friendly Moriori.

Seal Boy is a simple read and may be aimed at teenagers, but anyone with a taste for adventure will enjoy on principle Emmett's voyage from spoiled toff to castaway.