The editor of The Spinoff Review of Books and author of The Man Who Ate Lincoln Road, Steve Braunias reports on what his ten-year-old daughter has been reading lately. Books are like stars shining down on little kids. They lit…
We asked Thalia Kehoe Rowden to put together a list of picture books showing a range of family set-ups, from one-parent families to families with two dads; anything but ‘Mum, Dad and the kids’. Here are some great suggestions to…
The Sapling editor Sarah Forster writes about her childhood spent between New Zealand and Australia, the books she read as a result, and explains why we’re making room for the Aussies on this site. I lived, from the ages two…
Music journalist Nick Bollinger shares a moving account of the place books had in his three daughters’ childhoods and his own parenthood. When I was a child, my favourite thing was being read to. I can still remember the smell…
Award-winning fiction (for grown-ups) writer Pip Adam recalls her earliest introductions to story through television and magazines, and resurrects the magic of 1970s Disney. As a kid I loved TV. I lived for it. I often say there weren’t many…
To celebrate the publication of My Meerkat Mum (her 15th picture book), Ruth Paul reflects on the childhood stories and antics that turned her into a grown-up reader, writer and illustrator. Once I won a prize. My sister forced me…
Nina Powles remembers the thrill of being scared by stories as a child, and not quite believing in ghosts but not not believing either … Remember Scooby Doo, I Spy, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, and Goosebumps? I spy a…
Playwright and Victoria University Writer-in-Residence Victor Rodger describes the twisted humour and terrifying morality of his favourite childhood book, Struwwelpeter. If you ask me about the children’s book I most treasured during my childhood, there can and will only ever…
Multi award-winning US slam poet Anis Mojgani writes about the things which captivate us as children, the magic and promise books hold, and how it is to grow up in a New Orleans children’s bookshop. The pages of my childhood…
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…