Quiz yourself on eight New Zealand picture books that illustrate Aotearoa’s multiculturalism and diversity. Can you get them all right? Test yourself, share with a friend, and let us know on Facebook or Twitter how you do! 1. Kia Ora:…
From the author of the highly acclaimed Into the White, Amundsen’s Way: The Race to the South Pole (Allen & Unwin) is the gripping tale of the Norwegian explorer’s courage, determination and ruthlessness in the race to the South Pole.
Kristy Wilson has been the School Librarian for Decile 1 Porirua College, three days a week for the past four years. More recently, she has added work at the Decile 10 Adventure School, 10 hours a week. I work 18…
Many of the awards for children’s literature in New Zealand (bestowed by either Storylines or the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults) are named after important people. Illustrator Giselle Clarkson has researched these award namesakes, made short…
The Sapling had been thinking for some time about how best to honour the late, great Margaret Mahy. Suddenly it hit us: A Questionnaire, along the lines of the NZ Book Council’s Mansfield Questionnaire, and the Proust Questionnaire. So we…
Illustrating a picture book is not a simple A-to-B process. Minky Stapleton (the illustrator of Linda Jane Keegan’s Things in the Sea are Touching Me and June Pitman-Hayes’ Kia Ora! You Can Be a Kiwi Too, both published by Scholastic)…
Alexandra Saunders admires Linda Jane Keegan’s debut picture book Things in the Sea are Touching Me, for many many reasons. The bright, crisp, clean illustrations by Minky Stapleton, the two mums, the rhyme scheme – find out what else! Things…
Writer Gem Wilder took her daughter to the School Strike 4 Climate on Friday, which reminded her of the first book she read in which non-violent protest was encouraged: Big Daddy Protests!. This book was one of a series of…
This is a momentous occasion: it’s the second anniversary of Giselle Clarkson Comics on The Sapling (actually, the second anniversary of The Sapling, too). Where does the time go …?! To celebrate, here is the 20th Giselle Clarkson Comic, all…
Eileen Merriman has just published her third YA book, but it is the impending publication of her first adult novel that has her acquaintances impressed. She makes an argument against the false pedestal upon which adult writing sits. Most bookstores…