Read to Succeed

To celebrate Olympics year I asked Kiwi Olympians and Paralympians to write letters to young people sharing what they learned about “success” from their experiences in Tokyo. Then I got each letter illustrated by a different Kiwi children’s book illustrator and put them together in this new work, Standing In My Own Shoes. There’s letters…

I’ve seen a few Book Week parades, where children dress as book characters, but I haven’t seen any do it the way Flat Bush Primary School does it. Dress as people you admire and are inspired by – they could be book characters, might be someone in your own whānau. Parade together as a whole…

I visited Papakura Intermediate today and it was so awesome sharing stories with these talented young people, showing them that reading can change people’s lives … even a book about rocks! And then to hear that the kids took books about rocks out from the library afterwards – that’s pretty cool.

I did a zoom sharing talk as part of the Reading Oceania conference recently. Whenever I’m blessed to do presentations I’m always proud to represent my home town Māngere, and let everyone know about the village that raised me.

“Hi David. Just thought I would let you know about a mum who came in this morning to tell me about her son last night.  He normally kind of grunts when she asks him about his day but last night he followed her around the house to relive your talk pretty much word by word. …

I’m making a new book about Black Ferns Sevens try-scoring machine Michaela Blyde. It’s called Strike Hard! The illustrator is Sarah Trolle and Sarah is a teacher too! The korero that goes with this particular picture is that the Black Ferns Sevens team see themselves as a waka, that leaves mana in its wake. “The…