100 Friends of Gecko Press gathered in Wellington at the Film Archives to celebrate five years of publishing curiously good children's books from around the world.
John McIntyre of the Childrens Bookshop in Kilbirnie likened the success of Gecko Press - which has now published almost 60 childrens books, including the 2008 NZ Post Book of the Year, Snake and Lizard by Joy Cowley and Gavin Bishop - to what was said about the Topp Twins: 'the strangeness of their success - it shouldn't work'.
He said that when publisher Julia Marshall first appeared in his shop clutching a book about a couple of geriatric donkeys written in German, and asked what he thought about her chances of success, he said it surely couldn't work. 'And she’d left her day job'.
McIntyre continued, that 'Gecko Press then is a story about dreams coming true, about not wanting to die wondering, about having the courage to give it a shot, about the sheer hard slog involved in surviving, and the immense satisfaction in proving the doubters wrong. I’m very happy to be one of those who has been proved wrong'.
Gecko Press has gone on to win Publisher of the Year in 2008; and Creative Gold in the Wellington regional business awards in 2010; and recently McIntyre had seen Gecko Press books lining a wall of the Modern Tate Bookshop in London. He said that people now come into the shop asking for what's new from Gecko Press.
'We have followed their progress with bated breath at times, with increasing optimism, and with ultimate delight. We have watched grow from a one feisty woman company to a two feisty women company'.
Marshall says there has always been a strong support crew for Gecko Press with people wishing it success and put this down to people out there simply wanting quality children's books and for their children to discover the pleasure of reading.
John McIntyre's speech: Gecko 5th Birthday(Pic left - John McIntyre)
We returned yesterday from Brisbane where we’d been at the Australian Bookseller’s conference. On the plane on the way back I was thinking about this speech, and how to start it. I was also watching ‘Untouchable Girls’, the Topp Twins movie, and there is a line in there that I thought summed up the Gecko Press story. Simply put it was the following description of the strangeness of their success – Lesbian yodelling twins, it shouldn’t work. Now bear with me here. I’m not for a minute suggesting that Julia is a twin or worse, a yodeller, but if you extend the same thinking to the success of Gecko Press, then it would surely be a similar sentiment.
Think back 5 years, and we have a publisher with one book about two geriatric donkeys, written in German, and with only the New Zealand market to sell to. That surely can’t work. And she’d left her day job. And she followed that book with a story about three children setting up a funeral business, translated from Swedish, and another macabre story about a duck dying that offended a number of school librarians, so that shouldn’t work either.
Or a love story involving a fox and a chicken, and without any text, and another about two small boys who think their parents have been killed by a truck. That should really turn off the parents we in children’s bookselling rely on to buy books from us.
So, in short, we have a new and presumably under-capitalised publisher who is producing books with unsuitable themes, for a very small market, and hoping not only to survive, but to prosper. That really shouldn’t work. My guess is that over time Julia has often been told that. Probably often. I’m not sure that I used those words to her myself when she was researching her company prior to starting up, but I certainly thought them. When she came to see us with a copy of Donkey’s, written as I said in German, and intimated that this was the only book the company would initially publish, and then only in the local market, I really thought this was a venture with a lot of challenges ahead. That is actually a charitable description of what I thought – frankly I couldn’t see it lasting.
And I was wrong to think it too, because the same had been said about me 18 years ago when I said I was starting a children’s bookshop. That was my dream though, this is Julia’s.
Gecko Press then is a story about dreams coming true, about not wanting to die wondering, about having the courage to give it a shot, about the sheer hard slog involved in surviving, and the immense satisfaction in proving the doubters wrong.
I can tell you too, that that last one is a biggie, and I’m very happy to be one of those who has been proved wrong.
The history of New Zealand’s children literature is closely paralleled to the old mother country. Up until 30 years ago just about the only books we really got were from England, and as Bob Kerr often points out, we felt alienated because we didn’t see the black cabs and double-decker buses on our streets that we thought were normal. Postman in New Zealand didn’t drop the mail through a slot in the door and we didn’t have school dinners. New Zealand literature, when it did emerge, mainly followed a similar child-centred pattern, cute and warm stories about young children or fluffy animals, all having occasionally exciting but always safe adventures, and all with happy outcomes. Often they were in rhyme, and sometimes the rhyming ones were good.
Don’t get me wrong here- some of our children’s literature was and is world-class -work by Margaret Mahy, Lynley Dodd, William Taylor, and others: and some books like Kate de Goldi and Jacqui Colley’s Clubs were revolutionary in creating a new genre.
All the influences though, were following an Anglo-centric model.
What Julia knew and we didn’t was that was a vast body of work out there that we weren’t getting to see, and that had a very different approach to what children should read, if indeed they were written for children at all.
In Europe picture books have a tradition of appealing as much to adults as they do to children, and many subjects we would avoid here are freely discussed and regularly published right across the Continent. There seems to be a healthy respect for the mental strength of children to handle difficult issues without the fear of Child Youth and Family coming to check your bookcases. Either that or they think a bit of Teutonic mental trauma is good for the development of the child. Remember, it was a German (Heinrich Hoffman) who wrote Struwwelpeter and the poem Little Johnny Suck-a-thumb, where the wicked scissor man came and snipped your thumbs off if you sucked them.
There is a more robust nature to the books that Julia has published, a strength, a quirkiness, and a depth that we have lacked, and aside from the odd squeamish librarian, we have all delighted in discovering them. Some work for some, and some Istill don’t get, but others I do. It is a great part of the Gecko philosophy that they are willing to take that risk.
Over the last 5 years I’ve watched with increasing admiration as that gamble looks like paying off. As the list grows, so too do its fans. We have customers who seek out Gecko books ahead of any others. They are attracted by the Wellington thing, or the New Zealand thing, or the plucky little Kiwi publisher takes on the world thing. They love the fact that the children, and others, that they buy the books for get such delight from reading them.
I’ve walked into the Tate Gallery Shop in London and seen an entire wall covered with copies of Gecko Press’s Mouk, I’ve been accosted at the Frankfurt Bookfair by a Kiwi living in Denmark who wanted to find Julia and tell her how much he enjoyed her books, or at least I think that’s what he wanted to tell her. Last year at the London Bookfair I met an English children’s bookseller who was thrilled that
Gecko’s books would be soon available to the English market. How cool is that?
Along this journey people have begun to see and recognize the value Gecko has added to our creative lives. After only three years in business they were named New Zealand Publisher of the Year, as chosen by us the booksellers, beating multi-nationals who highly covet the award. They have achieved that by setting high standards in production and design. For a start up company to invest in the best illustrators, translators, designers, and editors, and to print on high class paper stock with aesthetic additions like French flaps is not just unusual, it is almost unheard of. It also speaks of someone with a long term plan, and the dedication to take it all the way. Along that way they have won book awards, and this year won creative gold at The Wellington Region awards this year.
It is a mantra of mine that nothing worth doing is easy- and the corollary of that is that if it was easy it probably wouldn’t be worth doing. And if it was easy others would have already done it anyway.
We are all here tonight because in some ways we have become the friends of Gecko Press. We have bought and sold their books, and talked about them to others. We have reviewed them in newspapers and on radio, and we have written articles about the Gecko story.
We have followed their progress with bated breath at times, with increasing optimism, and with ultimate delight. We have watched grow from a one feisty woman company to a two feisty women company.
Every business needs its champions, people who buy into the dream and do all in their power to help keep it alive so tonight is our celebration too. But mostly of course we are here to congratulate Julia and Jane on achieving a significant milestone, and for creating through their passion, their dedication and their hard work, a great little company that has made a great big difference.
We’ll see you all in another 5 years in the Town Hall for their 10th.
Thank you.
Please raise your glasses.
To Gecko Press, Happy fifth birthday
No comments:
Post a Comment