Do you want to be sure you're getting top-shelf books for your favourite people this Christmas - or on any gift-giving occasion? We are making it easy for you! Here is our selection of the very best New Zealand picture books of 2017. The Longest Breakfast by Jenny Bornholdt, illustrated by Sarah Wilkins Published by Gecko Press RRP $30.00 In this delightful story Jenny Bornholdt shows us a family getting up and making breakfast, through fun little flashes of conversation.

Mark Broatch reviews four recent picture books by New Zealand authors and illustrators – Inspector Brunswick: The Case of the Missing Eyebrow about a feline detective and an art gallery, What Are You Supposed to Be? about a weird wolf, Grandad's Guitar which celebrates inter-generational bonds and We're Off to Find a Kiwi, in which two siblings go on an adventure in search of the quiet bird. A spread from Inspector Brunswick: The Case of the Missing Eyebrow by Chris Lam Sam a

One of the first things we did when considering The Sapling was sit down and think: now, what can we offer that nobody else can? There are a lot of wonderful book-focused bloggers in New Zealand, as well as quite a few great book-focused websites. And, while some of the blogs are just about children’s books and some of the websites have good children’s lit sections, the gap was there: a multi-contributor website about children's literature that brings it all together. Because

David Hill reviews Torty and the Soldier, a picture book about the true story of a very old tortoise, by Jennifer Beck and illustrated by Fifi Colston. Children's writers are accustomed to getting judged both on literary grounds and for perceived ethical standards. But a few eyebrows rose some years back when one columnist accused New Zealand practitioners of ‘depriving young readers of their childhoods’. In translation, this turned out to mean that such authors were daring t