I have to opine that the mention from New Zealander Mike Harding that his late wife found illustrations of shore whaling in an old children’s book seems to indicate this was the Reed book. After all it is a children’s book, it was published in NZ, and Reed did publish such books. Also Conrad Frieboe was a prolific children’s illustrator. It could well be a children’s book discarded from a school’s library.

RBW mentions another obscure and rare book The Story of TB Kennard. I would opine that this is not a children’s book at all and its rarity unlikely to be in a school’s library. I don’t think this is a candidate for the tome being researched.