You are orators

I’m working with children from Manurewa West School on a bilingual (Māori and English) book about Matariki. As part of the project we went out to Kurawaka Animation Studio in West Auckland and the children got to learn digital illustration skills from Stan, Dean, Wailer and Jayden. It’s an awesome program they’ve got going teaching…

Spent the morning at Flat Bush School with inspirational alumni Willie Maea, Samson Vaotuua, Greg Va’afusuaga, Jay Paniani and Dr Julienne Faletau as they returned to visit their old school. The Writers Group of children interviewed these tuakana for a book of inspiration that will be called Flat Bush Forever.

I’ve been working with children from the Hindi College in West Auckland. We’re making a book that teaches children what to do in a flood. It’s been awesome learning Indian culture from these children and teachers and finding fun ways to incorporate their culture into the story. The project is one of four I’m doing…

I’m working with young writers at Flatbush School this term and today we had an inspiring visit by Indira Stewart. Indira is an award winning journalist and an amazing role model for our young Pasifika writers. “Your story is so important,” she told them with tears welling up. “Someone needs to hear your story so…

Today I received an awesome message from David Ackery, librarian at Waitakere College. “I finally got around to getting a copy of The Reading Tribe. What a great book! So unique, and so NZ. And so much material there for librarians to use to drive reading engagement. We made it into a  feature display at…

I did a talk at Ashburton Intermediate today – told the children a story about how a book about rocks changed someone’s life. After the talk these four boys came sprinting into the library asking where the books on rocks are.  ‘Why do you want to read those?’ I asked the boys. ‘We want knowledge,’…