Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Storylines Betty Gilderdale Award 2017

We are delighted to announce that the winner of the 2017 Storylines Betty Gilderdale award for outstanding service to children’s literature is our very own Maureen Crisp!!

From the Storylines press release issued today: 

STORYLINES BETTY GILDERDALE AWARD 2017 

Wellington teacher, author and literary blogger Maureen Crisp has been announced as the winner of the 2017 Storylines Betty Gilderdale award for outstanding service to children’s literature. 

“Storylines is delighted to honour Maureen as one of the unsung heroes of children’s literature in this country,” says Storylines chair Dr Libby Limbrick. “She was convenor of two national conferences for children’s writers and illustrators, in 2009 and 2015, and also serves as president of the Wellington Children’s Book Association.

Her weekly blog on news and views on children’s publishing is followed by many published and aspiring writers. She also began and continues to contribute to the online children’s writing competition Fabo Story, an opportunity enjoyed by many hundreds of children around the country.” 

Maureen Crisp is also a published author of junior fiction. 

The Storylines Betty Gilderdale Award honours Betty Gilderdale, a lifelong advocate and supporter of children’s literature, through her academic research, work as a reviewer and 30 years' committee service to Auckland’s Children’s Literature Association. Prior to 2000, the award was known as the Children’s Literature Association’s Award for Services to Children’s Literature.

The Award is given for outstanding service to children’s literature and literacy and carries a monetary prize of $2000. As part of the award presentation, to be held in Wellington on Monday 27 November, Maureen Crisp will deliver a 40 minute address known as the Storylines Spring Lecture.

Congratulations Maureen from all of us in the WCBA!!
and please put Monday 27 November in your diaries for the award ceremony. 

Keep an eye on the Storylines website for more details. 

Monday, June 12, 2017

John McIntyre, champion of children’s books, 1951-2017

By now many of you will have heard the sad news that John McIntyre of The Children's Bookshop, bookseller extraordinaire, died on Saturday 10 June, after a brave fight with chronic illness.

When someone dies, people often ask "what can we do?" - well - there is something you can do...

We'd love it if as many people as possible could Buy a Book for John - to show what John meant to you and to the world of children's literature, and to give some practical support to Ruth McIntyre and the bookshop over the next few weeks. If you're in Wellington, pop into the bookshop (Shop 26, Kilbirnie Plaza, Kilbirnie). If you live elsewhere, you can shop online on their wonderful website. We'd like to think the bookshop staff will be swamped with orders and run off their feet. (We've checked with them first!) If so, your order might take a little while to process, but it will be forthcoming!

The Children's Bookshop stocks a fabulous selection of books for children and young adults, as well as some adult fiction and non-fiction. If you're not sure what to buy, ask one of the bookshop staff - they are all amazing and knowledgeable (after all, they were trained by John). Or check out the suggestions on their website - have a look at the latest newsletters.

Buy a book for yourself, or buy one to give away and tell the person you give it to that it's in memory of John McIntyre. John said of himself, "I'm just a bookseller" - but we know he was much more than that.

Spread the word on #buyabookforjohn

Funeral details:
John's funeral will be at 1pm on Friday 16 June at Old St Paul's, Thorndon, Wellington (and the bookshop will be closed on that day). In lieu of flowers, the family has said that donations to Kidney Health NZ would be appreciated. Messages for the McIntyre family can be left on John's tribute page or sent to: The Children's Bookshop, Shop 26, Kilbirnie Plaza, Kilbirnie, Wellington 6022

More tributes to John:

The Sapling: Farewell dear John we miss you already

Booksellers NZ: Vale John McIntyre, creator of readers

Radio NZ interview with Kathryn Ryan, 26 May 2017 - recorded just after John had decided to give up the review spot he'd held, every second Friday,  for 15 years 

[This is an initiative by the Wellington Children's Book Association Inc. We don't mean to take away business from any other of our wonderful bookshops. We'd simply like to show our appreciation for John in a  way that we hope he would have approved of. For John, it was always all about the books - not about him.] 

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

The Sapling

Happy New Year everyone, and here is an update about The Sapling, which many of you will already know about. (If you didn't catch it in the weekend, listen to this interview with Sarah on Standing Room Only.) 


We are Sarah Forster and Jane Arthur, and we love reading and talking about children's books, and we think that there is more to them than the conversation we are given in the main media. We think they deserve equal time, energy and passion as books for adults. 

So we have started The Sapling, an online magazine that will launch in March. We have some funding from Creative NZ to pay our contributors, but in order to commission several articles a week (mixing essays, reviews, interviews and creative crafts), we are also running a crowd-funding campaign, which we intend to do through Boosted

We would like to ask you to be our partners in promoting this campaign via your newsletter, social media and any other forum you can think of! We have some fabulous articles already coming through, and your promotion will make a massive difference in the size of audience we can reach with both the campaign and the website once it is launched.

We are on Twitter and Facebook, and we will be launching the website in the first week of March. 

If you would like a graphic, press release and promotional link sent to you once it is prepared, please let us know - it would be great also to have an idea of how you are able to promote it. The campaign is scheduled to launch on 24 January. 

We will gladly acknowledge you on our campaign page as soon as it launches, as our first supporters.

kind regards,

Sarah Forster and Jane Arthur
Founding Editors