About this book
Ted Dawe's award-winning young adult novel follows Te Arepa Santos, a young Māori boy from a close-knit East Coast village who wins a scholarship to Drake's, a prestigious Auckland boarding school. Removed from his community and cultural identity, Te Arepa encounters a world of privilege and peer pressure, and is gradually drawn into experiences of racism, bullying, alcohol, drugs, and sex. The novel won the New Zealand Post Children's Book of the Year Award in 2013. Its unflinching portrayal of adolescent experience — including several sexually explicit and violent scenes — made it the most contested young adult title in New Zealand's publishing history, triggering a sequence of classification decisions that ended with a temporary nationwide prohibition in 2015 and a subsequent change in New Zealand censorship law.
Why it was banned
Classified as unrestricted on publication, then restricted to R14 ("parental advisory explicit content") by the New Zealand Classification Office in 2013. In 2015 the New Zealand Film and Literature Board of Review issued an Interim Restriction Order making possession and distribution a criminal offence — effectively a nationwide ban. After public and legal challenge, the classification was returned to unrestricted. The Classification Office concluded "a restriction would be inconsistent with the right to freedom of expression." The case contributed to a 2017 reform of New Zealand classification law.
Bans
| Country | Year | Reasons | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New Zealand | 2013lifted | SexualViolenceDrugs | ||
| Interim Restriction Order 2015 made possession and distribution a criminal offence. Lifted after challenge; returned to unrestricted status. Led to 2017 legislative amendment. | ||||
