Book Quiz: The change of the seasons
We may not yet have reached the Season of the Age of Aquarius, but it certainly appears to be Spring right now, and we figure sooner or later Summer will reach our fair shores. Lets do a quiz to celebrate!…
Junior Fiction
Book Reviews: Soda Pop and The Ice Sea Pirates
Incredible poet and children’s fiction writer James Norcliffe reviews two books by Gecko Press, translated from the Swedish. Soda Pop is a Swedish classic, first published in Swedish in 1970, and took Norcliffe back to his days listening to The…
Quiz: first lines of classic Kiwi kids’ novels
How well do you know classic New Zealand children’s novels? Do you think you could recognise them from their first sentences? Have a go! Answers are at the bottom of the page. 1. ‘When, suddenly, on an ordinary Wednesday, it…
Book Awards: the junior fiction finalists
As part of our coverage of this year’s NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, we asked the five shortlisted authors of the Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction to explain the story behind their story. Here’s how, and…
Juliet Jacka and Sally Sutton on writing for kids
Writing children’s books may seem romantic at remove, but — as with many things — it’s less glossy up close. As Kiwi writers Juliet Jacka and Sally Sutton can attest to, for every passionate line they write, only a lucky…
The Upside-Down World of Twice Upon a Time
Poet and children’s writer James Norcliffe is a national treasure. He has been involved in the School for Young Writers in Christchurch for many years, and releases both poetry and junior fiction books regularly. Sarah Forster reviews his latest novel…
The Sampling: Twice Upon a Time
An excerpt from James Norcliffe’s Twice Upon a Time, a Junior Fiction novel about Ginny’s search for her Pop. It is full of quirky, inventive characters, chief among them Digger Dagger, whom Ginny encounters for the second time below.
The Whakapapa of Awatea’s Treasure
School principal Fraser Smith writes about how his debut children’s novel Awatea’s Treasure went from idea to manuscript to published book. Awatea’s Treasure began on a School Camp, sitting around a fire on round rocks still warm from the sun,…
The Sampling: Snake & Lizard—Helper & Helper
‘Food and Friends’, a chapter from Helper and Helper, the new Snake and Lizard book written by Joy Cowley and illustrated by Gavin Bishop.