Lin and the Red Stranger

Book excerpt: A poignant young adult novel set in the goldfields of Otago during the 1860s goldrush. The story by an award-wining YA writer follows the lives of two young people, both very different, drawn to the goldfields for the same reason - they all hope to strike it rich. One of the main characters is a young Chinese girl, and the other a European boy. As well as being a plot-driven story, this book examines the cultural differences between these two. This provides interesting discussion points for New Zealand society today, where we still grapple with many of these same cultural problems. It shows how people are shaped by struggle and adversity and how the goldfields shaped our society in the nineteenth century, changing people who then went on to change their world.