A book read aloud in the classroom can stay with a child for a lifetime. I can still conjure the beautiful Scottish voice of one brilliant reader-alouder from my primary school, forty years later. My children frequently recommend books their teachers have read them—and hunt them down for re-reading. They both went to Te Kura… Read more »
Catharina Valckx was born in 1957 in the Netherlands. She grew up in France and now lives in Amsterdam. She has written and illustrated over thirty books and been nominated four times for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. Her books are published in more than eleven languages and have won numerous awards. Zanzibar, an uplifting,… Read more »
At Gecko Press, we’re big fans of poetry and nonsense rhymes. We’re excited about the upcoming launch of The Gobbledegook Book: A Joy Cowley Anthology, illustrated by Giselle Clarkson. So we wanted to share the joy of children’s poetry with you.
In honour of Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, we want to celebrate the increasing number of books being published in te reo Māori. We asked Lucy Ira Bailey (Te Ati Awa, Ngāti Mutunga, Taranaki), the senior bookseller at The Children’s Bookshop in Wellington, to curate a list for us. Find these books at a… Read more »
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.
After the picks for Babies and Toddlers and the one for Preschoolers, here is a selection of chapter books and novels.
Gecko Press authors and illustrators have excellent taste, so we figured they were excellent people to ask for recommendations.
Read on for some inspiration.
As a primary school librarian, you need to be prepared for everything, especially the unexpected. And you have to be very patient and flexible. It is difficult to describe a typical day, as no two days are the same, although there are always the staple ingredients of children and books.
Here’s how I spent my six hours of employment on a typical Wednesday before the lockdown.
Kitty Crowther — storyteller, illustrator, writer, children’s book advocate, recipient of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, author and illustrator of Stories of the Night — took over the Gecko Press Instagram account on Wednesday 13th May to give an insight into her life in lockdown and a peek into her studio.
I’ve lived my whole life with Joy Cowley’s stories and was totally stunned when I was invited into the Gecko Press office and asked if I’d like to illustrate a collection of them. I felt pretty daunted, but also very excited and I couldn’t wait to start drawing.
