Friends of Gecko Press
At Gecko Press, we believe that one good book can spark a lifetime love of reading.
We have built a digital and real-life community where people can share knowledge about great books for children (not just our books) and find creative ways to encourage children to love to read.
Friends of Gecko Press takes books to places they are not normally found and works with anyone who wants to encourage a child to love to read. This community brings together the entire book ecosystem – libraries, booksellers, schools, families, children.
If you want our help to organize an event, create a book club, or if you have ideas to promote children’s books and reading, please become a Friend of Gecko Press and share them with us.
Do you want to receive our monthly newsletter, events invitations and special offers?
Gecko Press Blog:
Time to be brave: publishing in a pandemic
Julia Marshall started Gecko Press in 2005 when she discovered that Ulf Stark’s classic Can You Whistle, Johanna? had been translated into 20 languages but not English…and that was the start of being brave for Gecko Press.
15 years on and in the middle of a pandemic, Julia reflects on publishing children’s books.
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Click on the image to download the activity sheet.
Book List of the month: Stories that teach kindness
This month’s book list is from Bridget Schaumann, Chair of the Dunedin Writers and Readers Festival Trust.
As Bridget says on the books in her list, “[these books] melted my cynical old heart, I guarantee you’ll feel that too with these treasures.”
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To receive a reading journal, send us an email at [email protected] with ‘Gecko Press Reading Journal’ subject line and your home address. Currently available to New Zealand club members only. Produced with support from the Wright Family Foundation.
Book Talk
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?
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Book Lists
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 »
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Q&As
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.
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Book Lists
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.
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Book Talk
It takes a village to raise a reader
Once the connection has been made, for it to stay alive, there need to be more books, more nudges from more people, and they need to be meaningful to what that particular child needs at that particular moment.
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Q&As
A Mother Is a House: Q&A with Aurore Petit
This book is completely autobiographical. It tells of my son’s first year and my first year of being a mother. It is a book I wrote so I wouldn’t forget that year and also to try to convey what I experienced when discovering motherhood.
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Book Talk
Creating a rhyming translation of Where is the Dragon?
Translating rhyming texts is pretty hard, particularly when the text is so short and condensed. Of all the editions, James Brown’s versions deviate the most from the original text, but in a good way. They always surprise me, and I love it. He manages to capture the spirit of the text, while bringing his own imagination and poetry to it
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Book Talk
Day in the life of Leo Timmers
Leo Timmers shares an insight into the work that went into making his latest book, Where Is The Dragon? From the first dummy and designing the characters to the execution of the final art and cover.
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Q&As
Inside the Suitcase: Q&A with Clotilde Perrin
While I was making the book, I had the image of a small child playing in his room with a small basket, creating a wacky adventure with the random objects he comes across. So I wanted a little man with a suitcase—that simple!
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Book Talk, Q&As
Where Is the Dragon?: Q&A with Leo Timmers
The story emerged from these drawings. After struggling for months, I suddenly had the whole story finished in an hour. Pure magic, and very thrilling. You just never know which new idea is around the corner.
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