It’s a Jumanji x Ready Player One x The Mysterious Benedict Society crossover that would make a ridiculously cool film. But the game isn’t really fiction, and Adam, the orphan, has to enter the world of Karazan to save his friends. The Serpents of Arakesh is a twisty book from the 2000s with a very 2000s plotline: an orphan wins a competition to be part of the worlds biggest and coolest game, at the behest of the game’s enigmatic creator. An Aotearoa fantasy film you ask? Here you go. It’s a story about who holds the power to your heart, your body, and how you think about sex, romance and personal politics. This film would blow The Craft out of the water: The Tricksters is about learning to write your own rules when it comes to sexuality. And the perfect premise: who are the three strange young men hanging about the beach who bear an uncanny resemblance to Harry’s secret book characters? And the perfect heroine: Ariadne (Harry), a secret fantasy writer with a potent imagination and a desire to explore desire. The Tricksters has the perfect setting: the alchemical family summer holiday at the beach over Christmas and New Year. Mahy’s supernatural masterpiece, The Changeover, was made into a film in 2017 which surely sets up the precedent for more, please. One of our best ever writers of YA novels, Mahy’s inventive and at times sinister stories make for thrilling cinematic viewing. This story has everything: essential local storytelling, a young hero to root for, conversations about land rights, colonisation, language and belief. In Kino’s hands the hero is Niko Te Kainga-mataa, uri of Hongi Hika, a Ngāpuhi chief. Shilo Kino used her journalism skills to tell the story of the protest led by Ngāpuhi against the plans for a prison to be built at Ngāwhā, disrupting the habitat of the Taniwha, Taukere.

A shimmering heart-breaker for a new generation of Simon fans. This would make a widely adored, tissues-required movie event: a celebration of teenage camaraderie, the thrills, the vulnerabilities, the joys, fears and troubles. The thing is that Simon has muscular dystrophy and a life expectancy counted in months, not years. See Ya, Simon is narrated by 14-year-old Nathan who tells the story of his best friend Simon who is funny, bright, and flirtatious.

David Hill’s 1992 novel will bring any human with a beating heart to an ugly cry state and still manage to leave you with the lingering warmth of friendship with a character you’ll never forget. See Ya, Simon by David HillĪ masterpiece.

Inspired by the new film version of Judy Blume’s pivotal coming-of-age novel, Are you there God? It’s Me, Margaret, here’s ten Aotearoa teen reads that would make feel-good films full of grit, heart, and hormones.

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