The story of New Zealand is the story of islands. This book is a celebration of the islands that surround the shores of the mainland. New Zealand is an assemblage of incredibly numerous islands scattered over a broad expanse of ocean, ranging in size from Stewart Island, at 1680 square kilometres, to rock stacks that are little more than sites for gannet colonies or hazards to navigation.

Pamela and Russell McGeorge have visited most of the 130 islands in the book from new territory to favourite haunts from the past. Featuring the best-known islands, as well as some that are relatively obscure, they have managed to present readers with an overview of the beauty and amazing diversity that exists among New Zealand's islands. These specks of land experience enormous changes in climate, much greater than those of the mainland. Their topography and geology are likewise extremely varied - from flat tablelands of green fields to raw rock stacks to the smoking marine volcano of White Island. In the past, as now, the inhabited smaller islands of New Zealand have always represented a microcosm of national life. Self-sufficiency, resourcefulness and a certain thumbing-of-the-nose at authority that New Zealanders pride themselves on, are more clearly defined, more resolutely guarded amongst those who have spent their lives on the islands dotted around the coastline of the North and South Islands.