"New Zealand Schoolgirl, an Omnibus of Hilda Stories containing Hilda at School, the Doings of Hilda, Hilda's Adventures", published by Blackie & Son Ltd, London, undated (1958).

Original dust jacket [wear and edge damages]; the jacket is protected in mylar cover, blue hard boards with dark-blue lettering on spine; 5" x 7.1/2"; frontispiece, 180 + 208 + 224 pages, no illustrations, some stains, very good condition.

Phillis Garrard (also known as Phillis Garrard Rowley) was a New Zealander. She is probably best known now for her Hilda series, about a co-educational school in New Zealand. Hilda at School, the first of the series, was the earliest school story to be set in New Zealand, and it was followed up with three further Hilda books.

Andrea Watson, writing in the Otago Daily Times, said: "each [book] emphasis[ed] the rural setting of Hilda's life and the democratic nature of the New Zealand state schooling system of the time. Hilda's determination to attend the local school instead of a girls' boarding school reflects the mood of a country recovering from the Depression..."

The Hilda books are fun: there's no tradition of "The School" to which one must play up: Hilda and her friends take fairly frequent days off, get corporal punishment, but have a deep respect for Mac, their teacher, who is the embodiment of "tough but fair." The books have a strong moral code: you tell the truth, are kind to your friends and animals and generally behave decently, but within that, the characters are allowed a lot more leeway than they would have been in a British school story of the same era.

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