Wild Pork and Watercress by Barry Crump

This rattling good yarn has now been made into a major movie: Hunt For the Wilderpeople, directed and written by Taika Waititi, and starring Sam Neill and Julian Dennison.

This classic has been released in the Popular Penguin format to mark 50 years of publishing in New Zealand. The format reaches further back to 1935, when Allen Lane founded Penguin Books with a clear vision: ‘We believed in the existence of a vast reading public for intelligent books at a low price, and staked everything on it.’

When Social Welfare threatens to put Ricky into care, the overweight Māori boy and cantankerous Uncle Hec flee into the remote Ureweras. The impassable bush serves up perilous adventures, hunger and wild pigs. Worse still are the authorities, determined to bring the pair to justice. But life on the run also delivers a bond of trust and love. The novel was developed into the box-office hit Hunt for the Wilderpeople.