The Giselle Clarkson Comic: Number 37
This month’s edition of the Giselle Clarkson comic tackles every creative person’s most daunting task: coming up with ideas.
Front page featured
The Reckoning: Deaf Culture and our Stories
A lithe superhero with infinite power in the hands slides beneath to the underworld, guided by the hypnotising eyes of a Pīwakawaka. A tuatara locks it in a death grip, but she manages to break free by finger-spelling the magic…
The Finalists of the 2023 NZ Kids’ Book Awards Are…
Each year, the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults make for a massive occasion in the Aotearoa kids’ book world—move over Oscars, out of the way Silver Scrolls. This is our night. It’s my first year covering the NZCYA…
A Book Lover’s Dream: A Review of Featherston Booktown
Sapling editor Hannah Marshall tapped into her inner journalist to attend the Featherston Booktown festival earlier this month. Her findings are reported here (spoiler: she loved every minute of it). On any ordinary day, the small southern Wairarapa town of…
Reviews: Three Pasifika Books
Emmaline Pickering-Martin reviews three new Pasifika non-fiction books with important messages to share—from a student-written poetry collection to a wellbeing journal to a collection of personal narratives about autism, all told through a Pacific lens. Pasifika Navigators: Pasifika Student Poetry…
NZSL Week: Tips for reading with Deaf and Hard of Hearing children
In our second instalment for NZSL Week, parent of a Deaf child and NZSL interpreter Jennie Yang goes through their tips on reading and storytelling with their child. See our first piece on storytelling in sign here. We started our…
NZSL Week: Storytelling in sign
This week is NZSL or New Zealand Sign Language Week. Many of the books for young children featuring signed languages or Deaf characters or by Deaf authors – though much loved – do come to us from overseas. So to celebrate…
Reviews: Three New Aotearoa Picture Books
Three new picture books reviewed by Linda Jane Keegan cover fitting in, farts, and science. The illustrations in each are wonderful and totally different from one another, and they will have you searching, laughing (or eye-rolling, depending on your tastes),…
The Reckoning: Are International Rights for Children’s Books Hard to Come By?
Achieving international rights is the ultimate dream for any writer. However, in New Zealand, achieving that dream is almost impossible. Author Melinda Szymanik looks at why international rights are so elusive in Aotearoa, and what opportunities our authors miss out…
Book List: Don’t Touch Me – Lessons in Consent
How to help our kids understand consent and set (and respect!) boundaries? It’s a surprisingly controversial topic. Guest writer Bee Trudgeon reflects on this area of contention and sets out to find some books that can help facilitate this conversation;…