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

May 17, 2022

“Our kitchen cupboards never have enough in them. My chances in life are not pointing in the direction of any hope at all. But I am the impossible made possible.”

The book Impossible by Stan Walker will definitely give you goosebumps. This story is about Stan, a famous New Zealand singer who won Australian Idol. But not a lot of people have understood how Stan’s past stretched him to be his absolute best. This story goes back to his past and of course looks to his future, while explaining how he got to where he is today.

When you look at somebody, you never see their past or immediately go “oh they have gone through some stuff in their childhood.” If they have a smile on their face then they are prescribed as ‘fine’. Stan put that smile on his face even though he wasn’t allright. His childhood was full of drugs and abuse which would plaster terror on his heart to keep things secret.

As a child, Stan absolutely loved to show who he really was and that feeling grew as he got older. He loved Aotearoa and he saw it as his safe place, his home. Stan shared with us his successes and points where he was at his lowest; very deep things. This story, where he shares what happened to him as a child and how that affected him, made my emotions roll continuously.

Stan explains how his father was violent. He would get beaten up and till this day has scars that still run across his body. Stan’s dad drank and did drugs a lot and he would lose it, especially at Stan. Stan’s dad didn’t know how to be a dad as his childhood was also filled with violence. Stan’s mother was the kindest soul – she would make sure her children were safe and cared for – but she had to be strict and had little parts of her where outbursts would jump out. As the story continues into Stan’s future, his father gets kinder and that’s mainly because of God, which shines through Stan today.

When Stan was little, he was ‘nobody’. Everybody underestimated him but then he showed absolutely everybody that he was something; he was a human being and deserved to be heard. In this book, he is so open and genuinely honest about what happened to him, he jumps right into it and gives us the little details and deep things that still give him scary flashbacks.

I also got some insight into Māori culture and how it works. He describes about his marae and tikanga. He also describes his family and what they look like, I imagined it easily too! There are also some photos in the book and I think that is really sweet! The pictures and names help so you can identify everybody in Stan’s family.

I loved reading this book, and Stan has become a very big idol of mine now. He shows resilience, he shows you can get through anything and if you work hard enough for something you can indeed get there! I would recommend this book to anybody. This is a great read!

•  Brooke is 14 years old and lives in Napier.