Following Part 1 of the discussion about the lack of children’s picture books focused on Te Tiriti o Waitangi, Barry McLernon (Te Āti Awa & Pākehā Scottish, Dutch ancestry) and Kay Benseman (Pākehā German, Irish, Scottish, Spanish, English ancestry) kōrero…
In the first of a two-part series with Kay Benseman (Pākehā German, Irish, Scottish, Spanish, English ancestry) and Barry McLernon (Te Āti Awa & Pākehā Scottish, Dutch ancestry) about Te Tiriti o Waitangi, Kay shares her thoughts about the lack…
Chinese-Kiwi author and illustrator Nessie Sharpe struggled to find bilingual picture books that represented mixed-culture families like hers—so she wrote her own. I was watching the kids playing tea parties one rainy afternoon. They were serving each other wooden cupcakes…
In the wake of various opinions about the state of children’s literature, Hannah Marshall tells us why we should be centring the voices of young people and moving on from the tired rhetoric of PC madness and literary elitism. Two…
A fleeting comment on Radio NZ about books set in Aotearoa made student and book reviewer Hannah Marshall uneasy. She sets out on a quest to figure out why it is that we don’t want to set our books here,…
Where are the young trans heroes fighting dragons? Kylie, Rey, and Mindy Parry recount their experiences of trying to find trans role models in literature. As the parent of two transgender kids working as a school librarian, I’m keenly aware…
We all have that one book; the one that turned us on to reading, or reached out and grabbed us by the heart and squeezed.
Should children be persuaded to read critically-acclaimed and classic books? Today Steph Matuku, an award-winning writer and mother from Taranaki, puts up her case for convincing kids to broaden their literary horizons, and shares how she’s tackling the challenge of…
Chances are if you’ve had a young reader in your life in the past decade or so, you’ll have a Dawn McMillan book or two somewhere on your bookshelves. Does I Need A New Bum! ring any bells? Or perhaps…
Te Wiki o te Reo Māori continues with this installment of The Reckoning from University of Waikato senior lecturer Nicola Daly, where she explores different approaches to text layout in bilingual picture books! With a growing number of options in…