New Zealand Writers

BOOCK, Paula

Her feisty female protagonists explore friendships and challenge traditional roles and social expectations.

Author entry from The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, edited by Roger Robinson and Nelson Wattie (1998), p. 63. Entry written by Diane Hebley [About the Companion entries]

BOOCK, Paula (1964– ), is a novelist for young adults.

Born in Dunedin and educated at Queen’s HS and the University of Otago, she combines writing with editorial work for publishers. She moved from John McIndoe to Longacre Press in 1995.

Stimulated by a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council grant 1991–92, and by a year as the 1994 writing fellow at Dunedin College of Education, she writes strong fiction which shows her sympathy for modern teenagers and her understanding of the social pressures they encounter in a ‘corrupt’ world on a ‘decaying’ planet. Her feisty female protagonists explore friendships and challenge traditional roles and social expectations as they cope with dysfunctional families, school and life after school, male aggression, and disasters including death.

Boock won the 1992 Best First Book Award for Out Walked Mel (1991) and the 1994 Esther Glen Award for Sasscat to Win (1993). A representative cricketer for Otago, Boock’s interest in sport is reflected in Home Run (1995), with its focus on softball. Her interest in the theatre is reflected in her one-act play, Song of the Shirt, published in a 1993 collection with the same name, along with plays by Renée and by Fiona Farrell.

DH

Updated information

Boock's novel, Home Run, was finalist in the senior fiction section of the 1996 AIM Children's Book Awards. Her novel Dare Truth or Promise (1997) was shortlisted for the 1998 NZ Post Children's Book Awards.

Power and Chaos (2000) is based on the popular television series "The Tribe".

On Make-up and Makeover (2003) is one of the Four Winds Press Montana Estates Essay Series titles, edited by Lloyd Jones.