Tara Ward transcends the cat v dog debate with a list that also includes a goat, a duckling, and a butcher who likes to share his meat. New Zealand bloody loves Hairy Maclary. We’ve made films about his life, erected statues in his honour, and turned Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy into the bestselling book … Read more
What’s the best way to get adults reading? Get them reading when they’re children – and there’s no better place to start than the Unity Children’s Bestseller Chart. AUCKLAND 1 Skunk & Badger by Amy Timberlake & Jon Klassen (Allen & Unwin, $26, 4+) “One of the best books I’ve read all year … absolutely … Read more
Last year the fledgling charity scheme Kiwi Christmas Books gave 1600 children’s books to Auckland Women’s Refuge and the Auckland City Mission. This year they’re going national, as founder Sonya Wilson explains. My earliest memories involve books. Kew Hospital, circa 1983: I remember stiff scratchy sheets, red jelly on a grey tray, the smells of … Read more
David Hill’s beloved junior fiction book See Ya, Simon is 28 years old. The boy who inspired it died in his first year of high school. That backstory is well known but now, Hill fills in the detail, including the obligation he felt to his daughter, and the grief that kept him company as he … Read more
An extract from The Nature Activity Book, which we strongly urge you to invest in for the school holidays. Books editor Catherine Woulfe writes: Written by teacher, scientist and head of the National Aquarium Rachel Haydon and gorgeously illustrated by Pippa Keel, our review copy of The Nature Activity Book landed just before Auckland’s latest … Read more
Announcing the winners of the 2020 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. The supreme prize of the night, the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Award, goes to Selina Tusitala Marsh for her super-personal picture book, Mophead. Mophead is memoir and clapback and wild doodle; it’s the story of what it felt … Read more
An exclusive interview with Steve McSteverson about his traumatic and tragic ordeal this week. Many New Zealanders are struggling with the news that a children’s book not commissioned or authorised by Jacinda Ardern was advertised in a newsletter for children’s books. This horrific attack on New Zealanders whose ears are permanently fused to Magic Talk … Read more
The embargo on this year’s list has just been lifted. Here are all the books in the running for a gong. Huge caveat: we are yet to read them all. We’re working on that, snarled-up postal system permitting. So please consider these initial thoughts. We’re very chuffed to see Our Toby (Morris) in there with … Read more
What’s the best way to get adults reading? Get them reading when they’re children – and there’s no better place to start than the Unity Children’s Bestseller Chart. LITTLE UNITY, AUCKLAND 1 Māui & Other Legends by Peter Gossage (Penguin, $40, all ages) A massive 4.79/5 on Goodreads! 2 Animalphabet by Julia Donaldson & Sharon King-Chai … Read more
We were in the middle of drawing up this list when Potton & Burton quietly dropped a new book – it is optimistic and surprising and all kinds of wonderful, and here is our wee rave about it. Plus, in no particular order, here are the other nine best children’s books of 2019. 1 New Zealand … Read more
The Absolute Book is one of our picks of the year and you should buy it for someone you love for Christmas. A story that sticks like a biddi-bid, Elizabeth Knox said on Twitter the other day. Here, she writes about the books that stuck in her own psyche – the books she was given … Read more
Tara Ward reviews Goodnight Kiwi, a new series that features well-known New Zealanders reading bedtime stories to kids. It’s strange to think that New Zealand television wasn’t always the 24-hour, infomercial-tastic extravangza that it is today. Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, our televisions used to go dark every night at about eleven o’clock, a … Read more
Growing up, illustrator Toby Morris rarely saw the New Zealand he knew in comics – until he discovered Terry Teo. The school library. Hampton Hill Primary. Tawa. 1990. I’m curled up in a corner on the carpet so the teacher can’t see what I’m reading and I’m having a moment. It’s a comic that looks … Read more
Two Sketches is a webseries featuring Spinoff cartoonist Toby Morris chatting and drawing with a selection of New Zealand illustrators, artists, comic artists, cartoonists, sketchers and doodlers. This episode, Toby sits down with children’s book author Bob Kerr, co-creator of Terry Teo. In the sixth episode of The Spinoff’s webseries Two Sketches, Toby Morris visits … Read more
What’s the best way to get adults reading? Get them reading when they’re children – and there’s no better place to start than the Unity Children’s Bestseller Chart. These lists of the bestselling children’s books at Unity Wellington and Little Unity in Auckland cover the four weeks to September 26 2019. AUCKLAND 1 My First … Read more
Announcing the winners of the 2019 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young People. Right now the loveliest people in the country are gathered at Te Papa celebrating 2018’s most brilliant and amazing books for children and young people. The best of the batch, officially, as of just a few minutes ago: The Bomb. … Read more
What’s the best way to get adults reading? Get them reading when they’re children – and there’s no better place to start than the Unity Children’s Bestseller Chart. These lists of the bestselling children’s books at Unity Wellington and Little Unity in Auckland cover the four weeks to July 4 2019. AUCKLAND 1 Te Tiriti … Read more
What’s the best way to get adults reading? Get them reading when they’re children – and there’s no better place to start than the Unity Children’s Bestseller Chart. These lists of the bestselling children’s books at Unity Wellington and Little Unity in Auckland cover the sales period May 10 – June 6 2019. AUCKLAND 1 … Read more
“Successful parenting is about ignoring the bad stuff and focusing unrelentingly on the good,” writes Catherine Woulfe – so let us rejoice in the line-up for best picture book at the 2019 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. There are so many shit books out there for little kids. Books where the … Read more
Unity and The Spinoff are very proud to announce the arrival of this new monthly feature. Because we love kids, and we love books, and we’re really sick of buying shitty books by mistake and having to read them 87,000 bedtimes in a row. These lists cover April 10 – May 8. AUCKLAND 1 Encyclopedia … Read more
The top 10 best-sellers of the year at the Little Unity bookstore for kids in High St, Auckland. 1 Maui & Other Legends by Peter Gossage (Penguin Random House, $40) 6+. “Peter Gossage was a true household name in New Zealand, because almost every family read and loved his picture books,” Paula Morris wrote at The Spinoff, … Read more
All week this week The Spinoff Review of Books presents the best books of the year. Today: the best 20 books for kids. Julian is a Mermaid by Jessica Love (Walker, $28) Picture book 3+. On the train one day, Julian is mesmerised by three mermaids in beautiful colors, long hair, and flowing gowns. Julian imagines himself … Read more
Every week on The Primer we ask a local business or product to introduce themselves in eight simple takes. This week we talk to Jo McColl about Unity Books Auckland’s new offshoot just down the road: children’s bookshop little Unity. ONE: How did little Unity start and what was the inspiration behind it? I’ve been longing … Read more
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand, with the interview available as both audio and a transcribed excerpt. This week he talks to Steven Renata, CEO of Kiwa Digital. If … Read more
Baz Macdonald has been a children’s storyteller at Vic Books in Wellington for the past three years. He shares some of the reasons why he loves the job, as well as some tips and tricks he has picked up along the way. I started the Vic Books Story Time in Wellington almost three years ago … Read more
Every week on The Primer we ask a local business or product to introduce themselves in eight simple takes. This week we talk to Abhi Kala of Titan Ideas who’s reimagining cross-cultural storytelling through augmented (AR), virtual (VR), and mixed reality (MR) technology. ONE: How did Titan Ideas start and what was the inspiration behind it? I … Read more
Steff Green is turning her experience of bullying into a story of hope for young children in the form of a new picture book. She is nine years old. Two girls at her school pretend to be her friends, but mock her and humiliate her behind her back. She confronts them one day, tells them … Read more
Fairy tales are a staple of most children’s reading experience – but should they be? Children’s storyteller Baz Macdonald wonders whether it’s time that we retired fairy tales for good. It would be difficult to find anyone in New Zealand who doesn’t know the stories of Cinderella or Little Red Riding Hood. We were all … Read more
Freya Daly Sadgrove, a bookseller at The Children’s Bookshop in Wellington, chooses the very best picture books, chapter books and YA novels of 2017. PICTURE BOOKS THE BEST: I Just Ate My Friend by Heidi McKinnon (Allen & Unwin, $27.99) I’ve seen a bunch of picture books featuring monsters this year, and the trend seems … Read more