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.
It takes a village to raise a reader
Day in the life of Catharina Valckx
Catharina Valckx takes us to her studio in Amsterdam and shows us how she created the charming Lisette in Lisette’s Green Sock.
Do Animals Fall in Love? The diversity of life and love in the animal kingdom
The parallels with human diversity and the ways animals express their sexuality and behave sexually are astonishing.
Children who read this book can discover that the most wide-ranging forms of life and love are a natural part of the diverse life on Earth.
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
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.
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.
New year, new list: preparing the 2022 publishing list
Though many are focused in the new year on the year ahead, at Gecko Press we find ourselves looking further ahead to plan the books we want to publish in 2022.
Read on for the hows and whys of our book choosing process and reflections on publishing post-2020.
Reading Aloud in the Babysitter’s Toolbox
Reading aloud is a key tool in a babysitter’s kit. It can bring children together from different parts of the house, calm them or cheer them up, signal that it is sleep time—your choice of book and how you read will depend on what is needed.
Read on for reading aloud tips for all babysitting scenarios.
“A school library is not a luxury, it is a necessity”
The taonga of a school library is hard to get back— it is not a piece of paper to be slid into a file. It is a precious space that needs our protection, our care, our aroha and our strength to protect it or maybe it will be filed away forever, lost.
Rain like a thunderstorm — the My Happy Life series wraps up
The My Happy Life chapter book series is one of the most acclaimed and loved we’ve published at Gecko Press. The books have attached themselves firmly to many of us working with them over the years, so as booksellers, publishers and designers, we asked ourselves what we’ve enjoyed most about My Happy Life.
