by rachel lawson There’s a bookshelf behind Julia’s desk at Gecko Press that miraculously houses examples of whatever we need whenever we need it. These are books we have loved but never published in English, for one reason or another. Julia often reaches in, mid conversation, to pull out exactly the book we need to… Read more »
Welcome to a combobulation of articles from our favourite thinkers, stories from behind the scenes, lists of good books, Gecko Press news and things that amuse us from time to time.
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Diverse perspectives in children’s books
Reading books from around the world expands our thinking. Yet international titles make up only a small percentage of books on the shelves of children…
Illustrating for the imagination
Currently, my mind-expanding travels take place on the pages of a different type of passport — the picture book. Here, both pictures and words offer a chance to travel without a plane ticket, to a new world, be it real or imagined. A picture book offers a round trip to the imagination, and these days, that’s my dream destination.
The books that raised the librarians of SLANZA
For our new series, The Books that Raised Me, we talked to the School Library Association of New Zealand to discover the books that raised the librarians of SLANZA.
LGBTQ+ book list—beyond the coming out stories
We are celebrating Pride 2021 with a list of children’s books featuring LGBTQ+ characters from Phoebe Wilton-Stuart of Wardini Books.
Gecko Press books shortlisted for the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults
We are very pleased to announce that three Gecko Press books have been shortlisted for the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.
Day in the life of Anke Kuhl
Anke Kuhl shows us how she brought the weird and wonderful animal kingdom to life in Do Animals Fall in Love?
Book list of bedtime favourites
For this month’s book list we asked some parents in the book world what bedtime favourites their children ask for again and again. Jane Arthur, manager at Good Books, Wellington, poet and mother of Pete We’ve somehow ended up with two identical copies of Peter Gossage’s How Maui Slowed the Sun in board book format,… Read more »
Leilong the Library Bus: Q&A with Julia Liu & Bei Lynn
The image of the small girl and the big dinosaur, the idea that something could be so gigantic, struck my young mind. I still remember the feeling back then of my heart pounding fast. Since then, I have become addicted to reading about these worlds that are far away in time or space but real to me.
The books that raised me: Julia Marshall
The books we read and remember as a child really do the heavy lifting of raising us as a reader. These are some of the books that raised me.