Gavin Bishop’s Aotearoa: The New Zealand Story and Wildlife of Aotearoa have been some of the best New Zealand nonfiction books for kids in recent years. They are books that myself and the kids at school come back to again and again, finding new bits of information every time. I was very excited to see a new activity book based on these books pop through my mailbox yesterday and I couldn’t wait to share it.
The Amazing Aotearoa Activity Book is bursting with Gavin Bishop’s fantastic illustrations and activities for all ages, based on the information found inside the nonfiction books. The book starts with activities that get kids to introduce themselves and their whānau. They can fill in their pepeha and draw their whānau. From here kids can travel back to the time of the gods or the dinosaurs, meet famous animals, create their own country and treaty, write stories, decipher secret codes, and colour in to their heart’s content.
The Amazing Aotearoa Activity Book will get kids (and adults) designing, creating, and imagining. It is an activity book so beautiful you almost don’t want to write and draw in it. It has been designed and produced with the same care and attention as Gavin’s previous Aotearoa books. There is something in this book for the whole family. Parents could work on the activities with younger children or older children could complete the activities themselves.
Like Gavin Bishop’s other Aotearoa books, te reo Māori and te ao Māori are incorporated into the information and activities throughout the book. This is one of my favourite aspects of the book as it exposes kids to Māori language and culture.
The Amazing Aotearoa Activity Book is released on 29 September, just in time for the school holidays. This would certainly make a great gift. It will give kids hours of entertainment.
We were first introduced to Juno and the people of Taris in Juno of Taris, what would become the first in a trilogy. I picked up Juno of Taris on a recommendation of another children’s librarian that I worked with and was blown away by the community that Fleur Beale had created. For those of you who haven’t read the first book, it’s best to start at the beginning, but one of the great things about the subsequent books in the trilogy is that you get a summary of the story so far before you start. I don’t know if this was an idea of the publisher, Random House New Zealand, or Fleur herself, but I think it’s something that all trilogies/series should have, especially when the books come out a year apart.
My Best Friends Are Books 