For Gecko Press, we are looking for what we call curiously good books — books of strong character and good heart, with stories that parents and children will want to read hundreds of times. We are looking for books we feel we haven’t seen before with a harmonious combination of picture and story that sets up an immense hum, larger than the sum of its parts.
New parents hear advice about what’s best for their baby on a daily, even hourly basis. One popular piece of advice is “Read to your baby!” Yet no one ever seems to tell new parents how. It’s not easy to read to a baby, especially a newborn. I remember the first time I tried to… Read more »
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 »
Our readers have been busy this month, creating entries for our September competition.
Anke Kuhl shows us how she brought the weird and wonderful animal kingdom to life in Do Animals Fall in Love?
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.
