Kiki and Me by Leo Timmers is a poignant story about the bond between a horse and her owner as she grows up. Delicate black-and-white drawings alternate with rich, dramatic paintings in this landmark picture book that received five starred reviews in the USA before its release day. Leo Timmers talks here about writing and… Read more »
We’ve always loved a twist in the tail/tale at Gecko Press—ideally a double twist! Perhaps counterintuitively, a twist ending can encourage reading again and again, to enjoy the build-up, spot any clues, and take full pleasure in the ta-da moment. Twist endings create opportunities to talk about a book, to discuss and anticipate while you’re… Read more »
By Rachel Lawson Below is a wonderful review by UK academic and teacher Mathew Tobin of our new book by Olivier Tallec, Red Snake Blue Snake. I couldn’t ask for a better reading of this book that we chose for its bright story of how opposite points of view can be equally true (and the… Read more »
‘My characters were strong children who could always win. They didn’t need adults to win for them; they could do it themselves. And I tried to put in a joke at the end of the story. I learned to write for children by reading and talking to them. I was taught to write by children.’… Read more »
By Rachel Lawson This month we release The Kerfuffle by Clotilde Perrin, a book sparked by a dispute the author was having with her own neighbour. The book’s beginnings remind me that children’s books about arguments are not for giving lessons. Rather, they’re the stories we find in the events and human behaviour around us… Read more »
Peek behind the flaps of The Kerfuffle with author-illustrator Clotilde Perrin in this interview about creativity and connection.
Explore Omnibird with Giselle Clarkson! A fun, illustrated look at birds, observation, and the joy of discovery.
Twenty years ago, Gecko Press published Timeline: A Visual History of Our World. It became one of our bestselling books worldwide, a staple in bookstores like the British Museum in London, and generated followup books including Timeline: Science and Technology. From the Big Bang to the present day, illustrated scenes tell the history of our… Read more »
What a delight to receive the Picture Book Award for Titiro / Look at the New Zealand Children and Young Adult book awards ceremony this August. This board book by Gavin Bishop began life as a wordless leporello for babies and developed into a book of first words that takes te ao Māori as its… Read more »
By Rachel Lawson, publisher-at-large The phrase “fractured fairy tale” took a while to permeate the Gecko Press lexicon. Possibly because we saw most of these books first as funny stories. It turns out we’ve made a number of fairy tales with a difference over the years. They have familiar characters and a story structure we… Read more »
