New Zealand

BookHub: The Next Chapter in Book Buying for NZ Booklovers

Created by Booksellers NZ and CircleSoft, BookHub is an online collaboration with Aotearoa’s independent bookstores (the first of its kind in the English-speaking world)! Launched on National Bookshop Day (7th October), Bookhub lets readers browse and purchase books from over…

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…

The Sampling: Lopini the Legend

By Feana Tu’akoi Check out the opening chapter of Leana Tu’akoi’s latest junior fiction novel, Lopini the Legend. It was awarded a 2023 Storylines Notable Book, and forms part of our 2023-24 Summer Excerpt Series. Chapter 1: Taha “Ugh!” yelled…

Reviews: Four New Picture Books

Hope Lenzen reviews four new Aotearoa picture books on a variety of topics. They include a story based on the real life of a suburban sheep, two non-fiction reads to help kids understand big emotions and body safety, and a…

Christmas Reads from The Sapling

We interrupt this hiatus to bring you a list of Top Recommendations for the 2021 Holiday Season, created for you, our dear readers, as well as those of Newsroom’s ReadingRoom. Compiled by Editor Sarah with a bit of help from…

LONG LIVE AOTEAROA’S CHILDREN’S BOOKS

The Sapling is dead, long live The Sapling. Just kidding. The Sapling is most certainly not dead—but we have run out of puff, and we are taking a break. In case you aren’t subscribed to our email, here’s a bit…

Co-Interview: Saradha Koirala and Gareth Ward

Saradha Koirala and Gareth Ward recently wrote sequels to YA books. While it was Gareth’s second time writing a sequel, it was Saradha’s first, so we thought we’d get them to have a talk about how you know your story…

Day In the Life: DEBORAH HINDE

Deborah Hinde is a Aotearoa illustrator, and her most recent title is Enough: A story about community. She spends her days running her business, PictureBook Publishing, as well as illustrating picture books and working on products for markets. She tells…

Resilience, Whānau, and the Power of Traditions

The work of some of our most prolific writers for children cannot be found in our libraries or bookshops. For Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, Kura Rutherford celebrates writer André Ngāpō, whose huge body of work has flown under…