From the Te Tai Tamariki Newsletter February 2009

Excerpts from the first of the quarterly updates for the friends and members of Te Tai Tamariki in 2009. We’ll also keep you posted during the year with news flashes, so if anyone has matters they wish to broadcast, drop us a line at tetaitamariki@gmail.com

What’s happening?
Off the Page — Original Illustrations from New Zealand Picture Books
the top floor @ COCA
66 Gloucester Street, Christchurch
17 March – 5 april

Featuring:
Gavin Bishop (pic left)
Ruth Paul
Jenny Cooper
Ali Teo
Fraser Williamson

We really can’t believe our luck in being able to hold an exhibition at COCA Gallery. Off the Page – Original Illustrations from New Zealand Picture Books is being held from the 17 March – 5 April. Aimed at children and featuring artwork from Gavin Bishop, Ruth Paul, Jenny Cooper, Ali Teo and Fraser Willamson this exhibition promises to be a treat for education groups and adults alike.
If you’d like to make a booking for the eduction programme contact Nikki Wallace-Bell, COCA gallery’s Education Officer on 03 363 2956 or email artzone@coca.org.nz. COCA is very support of Te Tai Tamariki’s aims and we’re very appreciative of this opportunity and their support in holding this exhibition.


Margaret Mahy Day 28th March
Proudly hosted by Te Tai Tamariki

Natural history writer and photographer Andrew Crowe is the first non-fiction writer to win the country’s top children’s literature prize, the Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal.

The award, given annually for a distinguished contribution to New Zealand children’s literature, will be presented in Christchurch on 28 March. “Andrew Crowe’s contribution to young New Zealanders’ knowledge of their country’s natural history has been unique and of long standing,” says Storylines Trust chairman, Dr Libby Limbrick. “His many books, both in design and content, are consistently attractive, informative and accessible to young and old alike.” Emigrating from Britain in 1972, Andrew Crowe published his first field guide to native edible plants in 1981, following an experience of getting lost in the bush and deciding that through books he could show that New Zealand was for him ‘a very special place’.

He has since produced over 40 titles about native fauna and flora, mostly as series popular with schools, trampers, tourists and natural history enthusiasts. These include the “Which…?” series, the Wild Stories series, Patterns in Nature series (also published in Maori), the Mini Guide, Life-size Guide and Nature Flip Guide series.
Regularly appearing on shortlists, he is a multiple winner of both New Zealand Post and LIANZA children’s non-fiction book awards and was a finalist in the 1998 GP Book Design awards, with The Life-Size Guide to Native Trees. Two books have also featured in the Montana shortlists – Which New Zealand Bird? in 2002 and Which New Zealand Insect? in 2003.

Andrew Crowe lives in Thames when he is not away travelling through New Zealand, countries like Tibet or Nepal, or going sailing. Other winners of the Margaret Mahy Medal since 1991 have been novelists, among them Joy Cowley, Maurice Gee and William Taylor, picture book specialists such as Lynley Dodd and Gavin Bishop, and one publisher, Ann Mallinson.

Margaret Mahy Medal Award Lecture and Annual General Meeting
Saturday 28 March 2009, 10.45am – 2.30pm
Heaton Normal Intermediate School,125/133 Heaton Street, Merivale, Christchurch
Registration commences at 10.15am
Programme
10.15am Registration
10.45am Welcome and Annual General Meetings
11.30am Presentation of Tom Fitzgibbon Award 2009, Presentation of Gaelyn Gordon Award 2009, Presentation of Joy Cowley Award 2009
Launch: Salt River by Liz Hegarty, Tom Fitzgibbon Award, 2008
12.15pm Lunch
1.15pm Margaret Mahy Award Lecture: Andrew Crowe
Cost: $25 for members; $35 for Non-members; $10 for Child/Student with ID (lecture only)
Registration Forms available from www.storylines.org.nz or contact:
The Secretary, Storylines, PO Box 96 094,
Balmoral, Auckland 1342.
Email childlitnz@storylines.org.nz
Also The Children’s Bookshop,
87 Victoria Street, Chch (03) 366 5274

Ruth Park wins Dromkeen Medal
New Zealand-born author Ruth Park has been named the recipient of the 2008 Dromkeen Medal.
Born in 1917, Park began writing early, contrib•uting stories and poems to newspapers in New Zealand and overseas.
She spent time in the US pursuing journalism, but after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbour, she moved to Sydney. She began a long association with ABC radio, beginning with children’s plays.
Her writing for children continued, and included The Muddleheaded Wombat, My Sister Sif and Playing Beattie Bow. Park also writes fiction for adults, including the classics The Harp in the South and Poor Man’s Orange.
Park has received many accolades over the years for her contributions to Australian literature.
The Dromkeen Medal, which has been awarded annually since 1982, will be presented to Park at the Dromkeen Society Dinner, Dromkeen Collection Art Gallery, Riddells Creek, Victoria on 28 February.

For more go to http://www.tetaitamariki.org.nz/