Features

Monsters and Chaos Walking – thirty minutes with Patrick Ness

Patrick Ness, the revered author of the Chaos Walking trilogy, visited New Zealand last week for events at Verb Wellington and Auckland Writers Festival. Sarah Forster watched his Wellington events and spent thirty minutes having him sign her sizable collection…

A Stack of Librarians: the 2024 SLANZA conference

Librarian Jess Starr brings us highlights and insights from He Puāwaitanga—Growing Communities, Developing Knowledge and Building Confidence, the School Library Association’s 2024 conference. My tickets were booked, my cardigan was packed. I’d been practising my shushing all week and was…

A day in the life: Rebecca ter Borg

Illustrator Rebecca ter Borg recently collaborated on her first picture book, The Witch of Maketu, with Anika Moa. She shares a day in her life as a creative with blurred boundaries between work and life… I work from home in…

Quiz: 2024 Notable Books

The Storylines Notable Books for 2024 were announced this morning. Test your knowledge of all books notable here! Questions Answers Storylines Notable Books for 2024 Non-Fiction Dear Moko: Māori wisdom for our young ones, Dr Hinemoa Elder, Miriama Grace-Smith (PenguinRandom…

Takeaways from a Masterclass in Illustration

Drawing from the philosophical thoughts of children, letting illustration shape words and the life, hard work and love of an illustrator; Nelson-based illustrator Sabrina Malcolm reflects on meeting three international illustrators at their masterclass. This past September, the windows of…

From the Shop Floor: Tijori

Pearl D’Silva introduces us to Tijori, an online store that seeks to make books available for children of the Indian diaspora in Aotearoa. Tijori is a New Zealand online bookstore with a specially curated collection of board books, picture books,…

A Day in the Life: Dïne

Dïne is the illustrator of Saving Wānanga and other books. She is also a tattoo artist, paints murals and takes on freelance illustration jobs. In the latest in our occasional Day in the Life series, she takes us through a…

The Reckoning: The Science of Writing Science

Alistair Hughes searches for the formula for good science communication for kids. Ernest, Lord Rutherford is famously credited with proclaiming: ‘If you can’t explain your physics to a barmaid, it is probably not very good physics.’ These days hospitality workers…

The Sampling: The Gavin Bishop Treasury

By Gavin Bishop This month we bring you a Sampling of pages from a new hardback collection of ten classic Gavin Bishop stories. This new collection was released this week, and features four of his original stories and six of…