In response to a request The Sapling put out on Twitter, teacher and author Sarina Dickson has compiled this wonderful list of New Zealand titles for those young readers who have finished Harry Potter and are reading above their age level at primary school. Advanced readers, assemble! As a child I loved to read. By the age of eight, I was reading anything I could get my hands on and in desperation had moved onto the books my mother had read. I read all about what Katy did at

Many of our country's magnificent writers also have different day jobs, and chief among them are the teachers – or in this case, the principal. Fraser Smith, principal of Oturu School and author of Awatea's Treasure (and forthcoming Awatea and the Kawa Gang), provides his take on getting our tamariki reading. I can remember the two people who hooked me into the language of storytelling. One was my father reading to us at night, the other was a teacher. They were both passiona