Thursday, September 17, 2015

Topp upshifts with Hucking Cody



Huck vb to launch from a substantial height with no style, just faith in equipment and one’s ability to heal.

I turned my bike around, fixed my full-face helmet under my chin, and took a long breath as I stared at the thin trail heading to the stunt. I didn’t consider any negatives – the what-ifs of doing this – or the fact that this gap drop was something I’d never intended to do. I wasn’t going to hang around for their imminent arrival either.
I began pedalling.
Yes, things were going to change…

THE obstacle course of Cody Harrington’s life is just as grinding, complicated and thrilling as the free-riding he loves so well, but can he rise above the huckster tag his big brother has given him?
Being a teen isn’t easy; there’s his job at the bike shop, where he is getting the rap for not locking the door and inviting a burglary; his wild brother Zane who is NOT back on the rails as his parents believe. As for girls? Beyond fantasy, they don’t exist, and his days are more focussed on getting to school without being egged by a carload of rugby bullies.

Cody’s Shangri-la is flying down bush-lined tracks and hitting stunts on his bike … here at least, life is sweet.
Things come undone when he falls head over heels - for a bike and a girl. Does Cody have it in him to win either, or are they both out of his league? Can he overcome his fear? Can a huckster ever really change?

Bunny hopping it’s way through the adrenalin-fuelled mountain bike scene, to teen politics, brotherhood, bullies and romance, Hucking Cody is a powerful coming of age story.
With his vibrant, gritty and fast-paced style, Topp has the won the backing of literary kingpin and best-selling novelist, Barbara Else: “Cody is such a great kid, heart-warming, sometimes heart-breaking, a realistic everyday Kiwi teenager facing hard truths about loyalty and responsibility.”

Author, Aaron Topp, distinguished himself with literary gold stars when his book Single Fin (2007), based on the true story of a boy obsessed with surfing, won the NZ Post Book Young Adult Fiction Honour Award and attracted a Storylines Young Adult Fiction Book accolade.
The former Hawke’s Bay teacher has also released Creating Waves, a gripping series of mini-biographies about famous creative Kiwis who surf.

Topp’s latest fiction taps into a sport which has exploded in NZ in the past decade, with over 1.3 million mountain bikers nationwide – and counting.
Kiwi riders are among the best in the world and the country has a reputation as the perfect destination for the sport, now regarded as the Pipeline of the surf world or the Whistler of skiing.


Revenue from Hucking Cody will be donated to 1% for Trails, supporting trail development projects around the New Zealand. 

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