KIA ORA,
What a time we've been having at The Sapling! There's so much going on!
One of our big pieces of news is that one of our founding editors, Jane Arthur, is getting ready to welcome her baby to the outside world - woohoo! - so we welcome Thalia Kehoe Rowden who is taking over her role for the meantime. It is wonderful to have a new friend to collaborate with, and we are looking forward to bringing you all the goods this month.
We were very excited to attend the Book Awards for Children & Young Adults, after having covered all the finalists in various features throughout the weeks leading up to them - and check out our photo quiz from the evening! Our other founding editor, Sarah Forster, had the honour of being a judge this year, so there was a iron wall of silence between us as we worked on these pieces.
So: what do we all think of the biggest winner of the night, recipient of the Margaret Mahy Award, The Snark, by David Elliot? You may recall we featured an interview between him and Gavin Bishop in March, and we were delighted to enjoy the Awards night with him.
One more source of celebration: Copyright Licensing New Zealand has very kindly awarded us a grant which means we can carry on commissioning the very best writers in New Zealand to review and reflect on children's literature, into 2018.
Looking ahead now, we have an amazing line-up for September, the pinnacle being our celebration of Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori, 11-15 September, for which we have a special guest editor, Nadine Millar (Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi). Scroll down for some more highlights to anticipate (a hint: one woofs).
Thank you for your love of children's literature and your support of our work here at The Sapling. We love this thing!
Sarah Forster & Thalia Kehoe Rowden, Editors
