Isabel M. Peacocke was born in Davenport, Auckland in 1881. Her father was Gerald Loftus Torin Peacocke, a Madeira-born English barrister and editor of the New Zealand Farmer, and her grandfather the landscape artist Ponsonby Peacocke. She first began her foray into storytelling in 1906, when she was the sole teacher at the Dilworth School, a school for boys in poverty. It was here that her stories for children began, and she would eventually publish 25 novels total. She wrote humorous stories from her observations of working with children, and the characters within the folk tales displayed the character and personality of the world around her. Although she wrote 16 novels for adults as well, her stories for children are what many remember her for, because of the stories’ lasting impression. Up till her death, Peacocke was involved with the Auckland literary scene, and would contribute to the New Zealand Herald. She died of heart failure in 1973.
One day one of those tiresome picnic parties came again to the bush, and after a great deal of stupid and rather terrifying noise, during which every Piccaninny and Bush Baby and all the other bush folk lay hidden away in utter silence, the people all went away again, and the Wee Folk were free…
Do you know the Lovely Ladies of the Bush? They swing on the tips of the Hoheria tree, with their floating white gowns and tossing silvery ringlets, and are so light and graceful that they float on the wind as they swing. If you could only see the Lovely Ladies dancing! But very few have…
The Bush Babies lie In cradles of gold; They haven’t a stitch, But they never take cold; For the golden flowers, And the golden sun, And the golden smiles Upon everyone— Keep the world warm and bright And flooded with light For the Bush Babies In their cradles of gold. The Bush Babies come out…
One of the Piccaninnies had a horrid adventure one day. He had heard a tui that morning singing in the Bush, and had made up his mind to speak to it, because he was sulking with the other Piccaninnies. You know they say a tui can be made to talk, but it’s hard to get…
Little Swanki, the Piccaninny girl, and Tiki, the Piccaninny boy, were up in a karaka tree eating the pulp of the ripe berries. When I was young I was told I would die if I ate the karaka berries, but I suppose Piccaninny tummies are different. Anyhow, there they were, skinning the soft yellow pulp,…
Of course fashions change, and no one need be surprised to find that crimson kilts were soon “out,” while the Piccaninny girls were to be seen walking about in pretty little white, frilly petticoats made out of clematis blossoms, and sun hats of the same flowers. The hats were rather silly, because the Piccaninnies lived…
Long ago the Piccaninnies didn’t have a rag to their backs except a huia feather which they wore in their hair. They were the jolliest, tubbiest, brownest babies you ever saw with tiny nubbly knobs on their shoulders, as if they had started to grow wings and then changed their minds about it, and little…