Enemy at the Gate by Philippa Werry

Finalist in the New Zealand Post Book Awards
Junior Fiction category


This book was a pleasant surprise since I didn’t think the cover was attractive or inviting. However the story and the writing is wonderful. It seems to plonk you fair and square in 1930’s New Zealand and one gets a real sense of what life was like back then for ordinary New Zealanders.

Tom and his family in Lyall Bay are not poor. But they are not wealthy either. Tom’s father would love a car, but it seems a long way off. Tom and his mate Charlie can wander down to the beach any time for play, or for Tom to run – he wants to be the next Jack Lovelock, and this is just one of the ways that Philippa Werry places the story firmly in this era.

The “enemy” in the title is “the infantile” the colloquial expression for Poliomyelitis. An epidemic is affecting children around the country and the schools are closed for some time.

There is a lot of history in the context of this story – school lessons in newspapers because of the epidemic, the abdication of Edward VIII, the huge celebration marking the coronation of George VI, the newly built Wellington Railway Station, even the movies that were popular at the time and movie stars like Shirley Temple. There are a few pages at the back of the book explaining the story behind real characters who appear in the story.

A brilliant book - and it would make a good read aloud for year 5-8.

Reviewed by Beth

Published by Scholastic