Impossible: My Story (Young Reader’s Edition)
Stan Walker
HarperCollins
Pub. 2020 (new edition 2022)

May 6, 2022

Stan Walker is one of Aotearoa’s best singers, but nothing has ever come easy for him. His autobiography tells an amazing rags-to-riches story, in which he describes some sadness and trauma, but also happy and fun times with his family.

His childhood was filled with violence and drugs – things that no child should have to experience. His parents had been in jail multiple times and he would often run away to his grandparents’ house. But in this book I am amazed at his forgiveness towards his family.

Stan loved Aotearoa as a child, and his pride for his Māori heritage shines through in his autobiography.  A lot of his story is set at Tamapahore Marae in Tauranga, where Stan shares with us the kindness of his grandparents, aunties and uncles as well as the sadness and hurt he experiences as a child in his own home. His mother was the kinder parent in his early years but as he got older his father would start to become kinder, mainly after finding his connection with God.

Stan also tells us about how he had to deal with stomach cancer. Although free of it now, the CDH1 gene almost killed him, very similarly to his grandfather, Koko.

The death of Koko was one of the saddest moments in this book as he was far more caring than his dad, and in the early years of Stan’s life, Koko was clearly the father figure in his childhood.

Stan Walker won the Australian Idol at 19 and has many songs that are popular. He has been very successful as an adult and is a role model to a lot of people. He now lives in Whanganui with his fiance Lou Tyson and her boy Te Puuwariua.

This book moved me, and my emotions ran strong as I read this story. He is now one of my role models.

• Finley lives in Dunedin.