Featherston Booktown 2026

Featherston Booktown Karukatea Festival is back for another year!

Featherston Booktown is a year-round literature development organisation whose largest individual project is the annual Karukatea Festival.

It aims to grow great communities by inspiring the diverse populations of Featherston/Paetūmōkai, the wider Wairarapa and Aotearoa New Zealand to read more, write more, engage in dialogue and share ideas.

The 2026 programme, held 8^th–10^th May 2026, is full of engaging and electrifying authors, including our very own Airana Ngarewa, author of The Last Living Cannibal, and H.G. Parry, author of The Magician's Daughter.

Airana Ngarewa will be interviewing journalist and broadcaster Mike McRoberts at his session Mike McRoberts: Speaking My Language.

Together, they will discuss connecting with Māoritanga, reclaiming te reo and reconnecting to te ao Māori.

Sunday 10 May, 2.30pm–3.25pm

Featherston School Hall, 11 Lyon Street, Featherston 5710

Join H.G. Parry for Dickens at the Dickensian, a conversation about Dickens' best stories, the different forms they have taken over the years, and why we still read, reread, and retell them.

Sunday 10 May, 10am–11.25am

Dickensian Bookshop & Tea Rooms, 63 Fox Street, Featherston

The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep - H. G. Parry

A joyous, inventive and engaging debut featuring a young academic with the power to bring literary characters out of their books and into the real world - the ultimate book-lover's fantasy
A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians - H. G. Parry

A genre-defying tale of magic, revolution and the struggle for freedom - perfect for readers of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.
A Radical Act of Free Magic - H. G. Parry

This sweeping tale of magic, revolution and the struggle for freedom concludes the genre-defying Shadow Histories duology that began with A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians; perfect for readers of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.
The Magician's Daughter - H. G. Parry

Perfect for fans of Genevieve Cogman and Diane Wynne Jones, The Magician's Daughter is a timeless coming of age fantasy adventure about a young woman's quest to discover what made magic disappear from the world
The Bone Tree - Airana Ngarewa

A story of two brothers, born and raised in the shadow of Taranaki Maunga, from major new literary talent and No. 1 bestselling author Airana Ngarewa.
Patea Boys - Airana Ngarewa

From the bestselling author of The Bone Tree comes a lively and playful bilingual collection of stories about growing up in Patea.
The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door - H. G. Parry

From the author of The Magician's Daughter comes The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door, a mythic, magical tale full of secret scholarship, faerie curses, and the deadliest spells of all - the ones that friends cast on each other
The Last Living Cannibal - Airana Ngarewa

The bestselling author of The Bone Tree returns with an epic new novel set in Aotearoa in the 1940s.
The Witch Below the Dreaming Wood - H. G. Parry

A magical reimagining of the Arthurian myth from the author of The Magician's Daughter
The Comeback Kid - Airana Ngarewa

Charlie Boy might be just an ordinary kid, but he's about to get into some EXTRA-ordinary trouble ...
Get ready for this funny, fast-paced, friendship adventure with lots of kick, from bestselling author Airana Ngarewa with illustrations from Story Hemi-Morehouse.

The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep - H. G. Parry

A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians - H. G. Parry

A Radical Act of Free Magic - H. G. Parry

The Magician's Daughter - H. G. Parry

The Bone Tree - Airana Ngarewa

Patea Boys - Airana Ngarewa

The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door - H. G. Parry

The Last Living Cannibal - Airana Ngarewa

The Witch Below the Dreaming Wood - H. G. Parry

The Comeback Kid - Airana Ngarewa

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