Painting a picture of New Zealanders

Capturing the essence of people in words has been a long task for author Christine Hunt Daniell.

Over six years, Mrs Daniell wrote pages and pages of notes as she interviewed elderly Wairarapa people for her book Just an orange for Christmas

The book launch was held last nightat Hedley's Books.

She said the process had been wonderful, especially when she gave copies of the book to her interviewees.

She said some of them were hesitant to talk at first, not knowing why she would want to interview "ordinary people".

One man said to her, "I never ever thought anyone would want to write stuff about me".

Mrs Daniell said her book is about capturing the flavour of New Zealand culture.

"We have quite a stoic down to earth flavour, I wanted to try and capture that.

"We all say 'Oh I wished I talked to Aunty Ethyl before she died', we all say that and I'm trying to do it."

She said the hard work was in shaping the stories but she has loved words since she was young, pouring over School Journals and entering poetry competitions.

Mrs Daniell said the book is not about a regional history or a recorded oral history.

"It's not folk history, that sounds like trolls and leprechauns, it's stories about ourselves."

The book can bought on Kindle, in hardcopy at Hedley's Books and Paper Plus.

The author will be doing a book signing at Paper Plus, 3pm today.