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Navigation: A Memoir
In the world of New Zealand children's books, the name Joy Cowley engenders enormous respect and affection. She has published dozens and dozens of children's trade books of all kinds, such as the Mrs Wishy Washy series, the award-winning Shadrach trilogy and Hunter. And she has written literally hundreds of readers for the international educational book market. She is constantly in demand as a guest performer and speaker all over the world, but particularly in the US. Joy has also written a tantalisingly small number of very fine adult novels, beginning with Nest in a Falling Tree in the 1970s and including Classic Music and Holy Days, both published by Penguin in the early 1990s. Joy also has an additional dimension. She is an intensely thoughtful and spiritual person, who writes and practises what she preaches and owns a lodge/retreat centre at Fish Bay in the Marlborough Sounds created by Joy and her husband Terry. Navigation is a relaxed, beautifully written memoir, not in any sense a formal autobiography. It contains wonderful sections on Joy's life growing up in a small Manawatu town (her first job on leaving school was as a pharmacy assistant in Foxton), her family life and her exploration of the joys of writing. It touches down constantly at Fish Bay in the Sounds, where Joy writes passionately about the landscape, the seasons and the natural world around her. ~ From publisher.
288 pages, Paperback
First published September 27, 2010
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34 people want to read
About the author
Joy Cowley
1,496 books103 followersCassia Joy Cowley is a New Zealand author best known for her children's fiction, including the popular series of books Mrs. Wishy-Washy.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
February 20, 2018
I have been familiar with the name Joy Cowley for many many years, how could I not be with a Kiwi heritage, a mum who was a remedial reading teacher , who was following the same style of thinking about awakening a love of reading in children who had already built up a very negative response to books, as this incredible author. I have missed most of her children's books though as I have long lived out of the country but I am now exploring titles in a lovely local bookshop on each Aotearoa visit, an will start choosing titles soon for my grand-family.
Anyone who has even picked up a pen with a thought to write, beyond the scope of a personal journal that is, will love it. Each reader will love it......so that is everyone in this space.
Full of wisdom. Full of anecdotes. Full of inspiration.
My favourite chapter comes toward the end of the book. Other Kinds Of Wisdom.
I have read of her beautiful retreat premises in the South Island, and to read about it here as a fairy-land of family adventure makes me want to go and nestle there and never leave.
My thanks to an NZ based friend who sent me the title and said, "you MUST read this. You will love it. ". Thanks Heather, you were right and I wouldn't have sought it out without your directive. Here in Queensland and I had to put in an Inter-Library Loan request as Joy is not the national treasure here that she is in the land of my birth
Anyone who has even picked up a pen with a thought to write, beyond the scope of a personal journal that is, will love it. Each reader will love it......so that is everyone in this space.
Full of wisdom. Full of anecdotes. Full of inspiration.
My favourite chapter comes toward the end of the book. Other Kinds Of Wisdom.
I have read of her beautiful retreat premises in the South Island, and to read about it here as a fairy-land of family adventure makes me want to go and nestle there and never leave.
My thanks to an NZ based friend who sent me the title and said, "you MUST read this. You will love it. ". Thanks Heather, you were right and I wouldn't have sought it out without your directive. Here in Queensland and I had to put in an Inter-Library Loan request as Joy is not the national treasure here that she is in the land of my birth
June 30, 2021
This isn't an autobiography, though there's plenty of autobiographical material in it. It's subtitled a memoir, and I guess this is how it works. It gives Cowley the chance to look at her life in a more topical way - she discusses her three husbands within the same part of the book, her children in another, her faith right towards the end, her adult fiction in a different section to her children's writing.
It begins a little too 'mystically' (for me) and occasionally wanders off into this vein at other points, but once I got past the first few pages I began to enjoy it thoroughly. I extracted three sections on another blog: one on her method of bringing up children (not at all formally, and not at all PC); one on the bleakness of New Zealand adult fiction; and the third on the surprising literacy of New Zealanders. I could have easily quoted other sections as well.
Cowley appears to have packed an enormous amount into her life - innumerable trips abroad, vast numbers of books written, appearances at a host of conferences, ongoing engagement with the retreats she and her third husband hold, and of course, her family, with whom she's continually involved. I guess when anyone sits down to write about their life it seems more action-packed to a reader than to the person themselves; we don't tend to note down all the breathing spaces that we've also experienced.
It begins a little too 'mystically' (for me) and occasionally wanders off into this vein at other points, but once I got past the first few pages I began to enjoy it thoroughly. I extracted three sections on another blog: one on her method of bringing up children (not at all formally, and not at all PC); one on the bleakness of New Zealand adult fiction; and the third on the surprising literacy of New Zealanders. I could have easily quoted other sections as well.
Cowley appears to have packed an enormous amount into her life - innumerable trips abroad, vast numbers of books written, appearances at a host of conferences, ongoing engagement with the retreats she and her third husband hold, and of course, her family, with whom she's continually involved. I guess when anyone sits down to write about their life it seems more action-packed to a reader than to the person themselves; we don't tend to note down all the breathing spaces that we've also experienced.
August 7, 2017
Joy Cowley's memoir is a look back at a life filled not just with writing, but with stories. Joy's zest for living, for writing, for people comes through loud and clear, and her voice is so strong. I was lucky enough to hear her speak at the Marlborough Book festival a week ago, and honestly, this book is like listening to her speak. I recommend it even if you're not a New Zealander and haven't read her work. It's just a really, really good book.
April 6, 2024
I was a fan of Joy’s children’s fiction as a child. As an adult I have been reading her youth fiction and I love that I have a ongoing list of adult, more youth and tracking down other writings.
I enjoyed this telling of her life by her, not an autobiography or ontology but those things and in the patterns or sequences she wanted to share.
So much done in her life to-date it’s incredible.
I enjoyed this telling of her life by her, not an autobiography or ontology but those things and in the patterns or sequences she wanted to share.
So much done in her life to-date it’s incredible.
December 8, 2023
I was dubious when given this book to read at my Book Club but it was great! Joy Cowley is an amazing person and if I could live my life with as much strength and acceptance as she has I would be proud. I definitely recommend.
February 23, 2024
Book Club
Not sure how to rate this one really, was well written and some parts were interesting but overall I just found it kind of boring and not delving deep into the ‘why’ or ‘how’ Joy Cowley was such a prolific literary producer. Left me wanting, unfortunately.
Not sure how to rate this one really, was well written and some parts were interesting but overall I just found it kind of boring and not delving deep into the ‘why’ or ‘how’ Joy Cowley was such a prolific literary producer. Left me wanting, unfortunately.
October 24, 2018
Joy's memoir is like her other writing - easy to read, with hidden gems inside. No wonder she is such a beloved children's author.
August 4, 2019
I loved this book.
I wasn't aware that Joy Cowley had travelled so extensively spreading her joy of stories to children all around the world.
Very inspiring and what a NZ icon
I wasn't aware that Joy Cowley had travelled so extensively spreading her joy of stories to children all around the world.
Very inspiring and what a NZ icon
August 24, 2019
A good account of Joy's life.
June 9, 2021
Scrumptious. I am more convinced of her being one of many NZ treasures.
February 11, 2024
Starts well but then meanders a little too much. Well written but some of the later chapters’ topics were not interesting to me.
June 18, 2024
Truly one of the best books I've ever read! It is stunningly beautiful.
April 25, 2011
'Greedy Cat', 'Mrs Wishy-Washy', 'The Silent One': how many people in New Zealand and around the world too, have grown up with the wonderful stories of Joy Cowley? In fact, after reading this memoir, you would almost suspect that she is more famous outside of New Zealand than inside. What a remarkable woman, with really quite a remarkable life, and yet also such a very ordinary life.
Rather than be confined by the structure of an autobiography, Joy Cowley has chosen to write a memoir: a collection of anecdotes encompassing the special events, people: 'the gifts of life that make a person'.
One of the most remarkable things about Joy Cowley is that as a child she struggled with learning to read and just did not get it. It was not until she was nine that one day, while looking through a pile of picture books at school, she did get it, and from that moment on she was hooked. Anyone who is s passionate reader well and truly will understand that moment when a book hooks.
Her love of reading, the sense of magic and escape that comes from a great story and then wanting to impart that magic to everyone else are the main drivers in her career as a writer of children's books and later young adult/adult books. I am sure her struggles with reading as a child enabled her to empathise with a similarly struggling child and so know exactly hot to go about writing to that child. What I enjoyed reading about the most was where the ideas for her stories have come from. 'Greedy Cat', the cat, for example was real, but didn't come to fruition until some time later. At all times she praises the talents of her illustrators who so beautifully bring her characters to life and into the imaginations of the child reader. And let's not forget the adult reading the book to the child.
Her life is not simply about books and reading. She shares her family life, her relationships, her children, her travels: not all of it plain sailing and she would appear to have had more than her fair share of pain and suffering. Yet by the time I had finished reading all I felt was her joy in life, her gratitude for what she has accomplished and the people who have helped her achieve and be enriched.
Joy Cowley is a true national treasure. In the mid-1980s I found I was one of the flatmates in the house she owned in Khandallah in Wellington. The house had not long been empty, it was old, run down, quite empty as we were the first tenants, but it did have a lovely comfortable feel about, it set in a rambling sort of garden and lots of sun. Quite regularly, the mail for our flat would consist of business envelopes addressed to Joy Cowley that, in hindsight, probably contained royalty cheques (before the days of internet banking), which we would dutifully re-address to her new home in the Marlborough Sounds. It did feel rather strange reading about this part of Joy's life, and somehow contributing to it in a very teeny tiny way!
Rather than be confined by the structure of an autobiography, Joy Cowley has chosen to write a memoir: a collection of anecdotes encompassing the special events, people: 'the gifts of life that make a person'.
One of the most remarkable things about Joy Cowley is that as a child she struggled with learning to read and just did not get it. It was not until she was nine that one day, while looking through a pile of picture books at school, she did get it, and from that moment on she was hooked. Anyone who is s passionate reader well and truly will understand that moment when a book hooks.
Her love of reading, the sense of magic and escape that comes from a great story and then wanting to impart that magic to everyone else are the main drivers in her career as a writer of children's books and later young adult/adult books. I am sure her struggles with reading as a child enabled her to empathise with a similarly struggling child and so know exactly hot to go about writing to that child. What I enjoyed reading about the most was where the ideas for her stories have come from. 'Greedy Cat', the cat, for example was real, but didn't come to fruition until some time later. At all times she praises the talents of her illustrators who so beautifully bring her characters to life and into the imaginations of the child reader. And let's not forget the adult reading the book to the child.
Her life is not simply about books and reading. She shares her family life, her relationships, her children, her travels: not all of it plain sailing and she would appear to have had more than her fair share of pain and suffering. Yet by the time I had finished reading all I felt was her joy in life, her gratitude for what she has accomplished and the people who have helped her achieve and be enriched.
Joy Cowley is a true national treasure. In the mid-1980s I found I was one of the flatmates in the house she owned in Khandallah in Wellington. The house had not long been empty, it was old, run down, quite empty as we were the first tenants, but it did have a lovely comfortable feel about, it set in a rambling sort of garden and lots of sun. Quite regularly, the mail for our flat would consist of business envelopes addressed to Joy Cowley that, in hindsight, probably contained royalty cheques (before the days of internet banking), which we would dutifully re-address to her new home in the Marlborough Sounds. It did feel rather strange reading about this part of Joy's life, and somehow contributing to it in a very teeny tiny way!
April 13, 2013
This prolific, much-loved, New Zealand writer―over 600 titles for children and adults, and the recipient of numerous literacy awards, nationally and internationally―in her memoir, ‘Navigation’, takes us through her impoverished childhood, though “very rich in family experience”; her three marriages; her search for spiritual fulfilment; and vivid descriptions of her beloved Marlborough Sounds, in New Zealand’s South Island, with its abundant bird life and, for the author, ‘inspirational’ sea.
For those of us born in the same era, late 1930s, Cowley prompts some wonderful recall of those times: wartime ration-books; the discipline in school; the freedom of blackberry picking, mushrooms gathering, to name a few.
Unable to read until the age of nine―and prompted by a son with reading difficulties―Cowley has made a big contribution, globally, to early reading skills’ programmes, and has a very strong opinion on why she does not agree with National Standard testing: a measure to test children at an early age on their numeracy and literacy skills.
The author proves to the reader that you can achieve your dreams if you’re focused. Always one to plan her day, at an early age she masters the handling of a motor bike, and its repair; progresses to flying solo in a Tiger Moth―the only female amongst a large contingent of males on the course; started piano lessons at 61―reached Grade 6 “then the fingers refuse the speed required by exams”, and then takes on woodturning in the latter part of her life. But her greatest fulfilment seems to have been her four children―she “was besotted”; “no one can look into the eyes of a newborn without seeing eternity”. It is certainly this love that endears children worldwide to her numerous titles. Proof of this is the letters and art work, her favourite ones, which fill stacks of cardboard cartons in a storeroom.
Cowley respected children and obviously valued their opinion, as is seen in a humorous anecdote she recalls. After reading one of her stories to a classroom of children, she asked the children what they thought of it. One child put up his hand and told her, “It’s boring!” “What part?” “All of it.” She took his advice. That story went into the trash can.
Navigation, a memoir, is an inspiring, poetic read.
For those of us born in the same era, late 1930s, Cowley prompts some wonderful recall of those times: wartime ration-books; the discipline in school; the freedom of blackberry picking, mushrooms gathering, to name a few.
Unable to read until the age of nine―and prompted by a son with reading difficulties―Cowley has made a big contribution, globally, to early reading skills’ programmes, and has a very strong opinion on why she does not agree with National Standard testing: a measure to test children at an early age on their numeracy and literacy skills.
The author proves to the reader that you can achieve your dreams if you’re focused. Always one to plan her day, at an early age she masters the handling of a motor bike, and its repair; progresses to flying solo in a Tiger Moth―the only female amongst a large contingent of males on the course; started piano lessons at 61―reached Grade 6 “then the fingers refuse the speed required by exams”, and then takes on woodturning in the latter part of her life. But her greatest fulfilment seems to have been her four children―she “was besotted”; “no one can look into the eyes of a newborn without seeing eternity”. It is certainly this love that endears children worldwide to her numerous titles. Proof of this is the letters and art work, her favourite ones, which fill stacks of cardboard cartons in a storeroom.
Cowley respected children and obviously valued their opinion, as is seen in a humorous anecdote she recalls. After reading one of her stories to a classroom of children, she asked the children what they thought of it. One child put up his hand and told her, “It’s boring!” “What part?” “All of it.” She took his advice. That story went into the trash can.
Navigation, a memoir, is an inspiring, poetic read.
December 8, 2018
I am so happy to have finally read Navigation, which has been on my Kindle for a very long time. I have really enjoyed the books I have read by [Joy Cowley], and based on her memoir, I am pretty sure we'd be friends. She comes across as a lovely person. Just a few things from the book that I particularly enjoyed:
She describes this memoir as A collection of anecdotes, viewed from a place of deep gratitude; my only regret is that I cannot name every one of the people who have shaped my life in some way. I'm like a riverbed trying to identify all the stones that make it what it is.
She relates a story of being invited for the first time to PEN (NZ Society of Authors) and how utterly out of place she felt. She was turning to leave when [Ngaio Marsh] introduced herself and drew Joy into the group and introduced her to everyone. Joy said, I discovered in the next hour that famous writers and poets were real people.
She received a letter from the Mark Twain Society, informing her that she had been made an adopted daughter of Mark Twain. Thinking she was being punked, she replied:
Dear Mr. Clemens, It is an honour to be the adopted daughter of Mark Twain but if I had been born at a different time, in a different country, I would have preferred to be his mistress.
The Mark Twain Society published her letter on the front page of their magazine. She says, "...this was 1969, and for weeks I whimpered with embarassment."
The wild bees no longer sing in the blood, but the honey they've left behind is exquisite.
She describes this memoir as A collection of anecdotes, viewed from a place of deep gratitude; my only regret is that I cannot name every one of the people who have shaped my life in some way. I'm like a riverbed trying to identify all the stones that make it what it is.
She relates a story of being invited for the first time to PEN (NZ Society of Authors) and how utterly out of place she felt. She was turning to leave when [Ngaio Marsh] introduced herself and drew Joy into the group and introduced her to everyone. Joy said, I discovered in the next hour that famous writers and poets were real people.
She received a letter from the Mark Twain Society, informing her that she had been made an adopted daughter of Mark Twain. Thinking she was being punked, she replied:
Dear Mr. Clemens, It is an honour to be the adopted daughter of Mark Twain but if I had been born at a different time, in a different country, I would have preferred to be his mistress.
The Mark Twain Society published her letter on the front page of their magazine. She says, "...this was 1969, and for weeks I whimpered with embarassment."
The wild bees no longer sing in the blood, but the honey they've left behind is exquisite.
April 13, 2011
What a wonderful book.
Joy Cowley declined the offer to write an autobiography, but agreed to a memoir because a memoir "was in a wider place, focusing on the gifts of life that make a person."
This is a collection of anecdotes that illuminate Joy's navigation through life. It goes without saying that they are beautifully told by New Zealand's best-loved storyteller, but they are also funny, sad, insightful, revealing, informative and spiritual.
Like Greedy Cat himself, I gobbled this book up. Thank you Joy Cowley for sharing these memories and thoughts with us.
Joy Cowley declined the offer to write an autobiography, but agreed to a memoir because a memoir "was in a wider place, focusing on the gifts of life that make a person."
This is a collection of anecdotes that illuminate Joy's navigation through life. It goes without saying that they are beautifully told by New Zealand's best-loved storyteller, but they are also funny, sad, insightful, revealing, informative and spiritual.
Like Greedy Cat himself, I gobbled this book up. Thank you Joy Cowley for sharing these memories and thoughts with us.
November 15, 2015
One of the reasons I am so enjoying this book is that it evokes memories of life and social mores in New Zealand about the time I was growing up.
April 1, 2015
Not really my cup of tea.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews