South Taranaki Librarians have been running online events with some of our favourite New Zealand authors. Pamela Jones writes about how their libraries have been responding to their patrons unique needs in unusual times. As Librarians our mission and purpose is to provide access and connect knowledge to the needs of our communities. In lockdown that hasn’t changed. What has changed is our service delivery. It has required library staff to expand their roles, increase their su

Libraries are no longer able to provide a physical space but their online game is strong. They are bringing you activities, storytimes and competitions to keep the kids (and adults) entertained. Monika from Tupu Youth Library keeping 'Wriggle and Rhyme' alive and well. When the lockdown kicked in and libraries had to close, many families were left short of our regular space to hang and our supply of reading material. While libraries can no longer provide a physical space for

At The Sapling, we believe that books grow humans. Rainbow Story Time is a recent phenomenon helping to grow humans who aren't too hung up on the gender binary, and who are comfortable with who they are. Here to tell us all about its evolution in Aotearoa is Queen Olivia St Redfern! Image credit: Upper Hutt Library I vividly remember falling in love with Dame Edna Everage on a 1980s telethon somewhere between the age of five and ten. It wasn’t until many years later, as a reb

Ahead of Father's Day, four Kiwi Dads let us in on what their family reading lives are like. Here are some excerpts from previous The Sapling articles by music journalist Nick Bollinger; founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards and writer at Crime Watch Craig Sisterson; political cartoonist, comic artist, illustrator, and writer Toby Morris (aka The Pencilsword), and journalist, writer and editor of The Spinoff Books, Steve Braunias. First up is Nick Bollinger, with an account of re

Jackie McMillan is the Children's Collection Specialist at Dunedin Public Library. She set up a book discussion group especially for adults to discuss themes in Children's Books about 18 months ago, and here she talks about the group and those like it. C.S. Lewis was not only a writer of children’s books but also a reader of them. He once remarked that the taste for children’s books is not peculiar to children, but 'is simply human taste, going on from age to age, silly with