Gecko Press Blog

In the introduction for the book, you’ve written that if Pipi was a cake, she would be this glorious towering sponge cake. If you were a cake, what would you be? 

If I was a cake, I love the idea of a tall wobbly sponge and defying all odds.

I wanted to make an up-to-date version of a timeline because at school, timelines helped me a great deal to understand history. Those simple lines with dates and pictures gave me a better overview and understanding of history than text. It is a way to create order in a sometimes-chaotic string of events. It helps you see similarities, influences and coincidences.

In my learning support classroom, I have a growing list of ‘go-to’ picture books and early readers that have proven popular with my students with dyslexia over the years. 

Anete Melece is a Latvian author and illustrator. On Wednesday 23rd September she took over the Gecko Press Instagram account to share her journey of becoming a freelance illustrator, how she created The Kiosk, and what she is working on now.

I’d like to share some of my favourite wordless or silent picturebooks in the hope that this will encourage you to become familiar with silent books and their particular gifts.

Wordless picture books can be magical. With no text pulling our eyes away, adults and children can explore the pictures together, and together tell the story.

Issa Watanabe was born in Peru, the daughter of an illustrator and a poet.

Migrants is a vital and powerful wordless picture book of courage, loss and hope—the definitive story of what it takes to migrate to a new land. 

Mihi is Gavin Bishop’s beautiful new baby book that introduces ideas of me and my place in the world in the shape of a simple mihi or pepeha.

Gavin Bishop shares his mihi and how you can you the book Mihi to guide you to create your own.

Author and illustrator, Gavin Bishop, shares his story of how he discovered his family history, his ancestors, and his whānau.
“Finding this enormous whānau came about because of what my grandfather had taken care to do in 1918. When he gave his youngest daughter, my mother, “all the names” he also gave her her whakapapa.”

Bei Lynn is an award-winning artist from Taiwan who has illustrated around 20 picture books for children. She took over the Gecko Press Instagram account on Thursday 13th August to share her day and also gave a sneak peek of her next book coming out next year!