In the last month, I’ve written a post a day about New Zealand books, focusing on children’s books. This is in part because we happen to have plenty of New Zealand children’s books in the house, so it was easy. There are some books I would have liked to have covered, but I ran out of time, such as the Alex quartet. Fortunately, both Ele and Karen Healey wrote about the Alex books. There are other books that I would have included, but our copies have gone missing – The Lion in the Meadow and The Little Yellow Digger are cases in point – so I couldn’t take photos of them, and couldn’t reread them before I wrote about them.
Of all the books I blogged, I think Annie and Moon is my favourite. Today, that is. By tomorrow I may have changed my mind, for I love many of the others too. I enjoy the glory and nonsense of Margaret Mahy’s books, and the little boy and his imagination in Taniwha touch something in my heart, as does the steadfastness and rebirth in Maraea and the Albatrosses.
Other people have been blogging books for NZ Book month too. Ele issued the challenge, and kept up with it herself, posting a book a day over at Homepaddock. Both Oswald Bastable and Rob Hosking blogged some books, ‘though Rob never come through on his promise to write about Bollard and Buckle’s Economic Liberalisation in New Zealand and Malcolm McKinnon’s History of the NZ Treasury. Karen Healey wrote about authors: Gavin Bishop, Elizabeth Knox, Tessa Duder and the marvellous Margaret Mahy. And new group blog, The Random Polka Dot Club 462, by a group of girls who may be known to me, features a post for the month covering four books, Kauri in my Blood, Kaitangata Twitch, Maddigan’s Quest and Alex.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about the books, and that those of you with small and medium sized children have found some ‘new’ books to add to your own children’s collections. Or perhaps some books that you could give to grandchildren. Children need books!
