Features

Pounamu Pounamu: Miriama Kamo’s first crush

Miriama Kamo is one of New Zealand’s foremost broadcasters. She looks back on her book-loving childhood, and that time she tried to get Witi Ihimaera to adopt her. It was a watershed, Pounamu, Pounamu: the book that was the growing…

In the Stacks: a love letter to public libraries

Kate De Goldi confesses the pleasures of reading ‘off-task and off-curriculum’, and describes how necessary public libraries are to the development of a love of reading. In my late teens and early twenties I worked as a library assistant in…

Dennis, Gnasher, George, Rona and me

Chief Librarian at the Alexander Turnbull Library and award-winning children’s book writer, Chris Szekely on how he became a writer. As a youngster who came of reading age in the 1970’s, my literary fare was predictable: Enid Blyton, Dr Seuss,…

Book List: Where to from Hairy Maclary

‘Out of the gate, and off for a walk, went Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy.’ It’s possible that this is the most famous line of any NZ picture book, thanks to Hairy’s superstar status in the UK. Dame Lynley Dodd…