November host for What Lies Beneath Exhibition

Guess who is hosting the exhibition for November? Hamilton Central Library. They've erected the displays and they look rather grand. Check it out.

What Lies Beneath Exhibition host for October

Wellington Central Library is hosting the What Lies Beneath Exhibition during October. Check out their display during library hours or come along to the Panel Talk on Tuesday 18th October 6pm - 8pm and hear some of the authors talk. There will be book giveaways, posters and bookmarks to take for your classroom or library. We look forward to seeing you. Here's a taster of the exhibition on display:

What Lies Beneath Wellington Panel Talk

The What Lies Beneath Exhibition is currently in Wellington. Head along to Wellington Central Library to see it on display.

Authors Melinda Szymanik, Philippa Werry, Glyn Harper, Anna Mackenzie and Maria Gill, as well as illustrators Fifi Colston and Marco Ivancic are also giving a panel talk at Wellington Central Library on Tuesday 18th October from 6pm - 8pm. There will be book giveaways, light supper, posters and bookmarks to take home, as well as a very interesting panel discussion about children's war books. See poster below for more details. Hope you can come!

Christchurch Exhibition

The Christchurch Children's Bookshop hosted the What Lies Beneath Exhibition for September. Near the end of the month we held workshops for students 10-18 years old at Burnside High School. Eighty students attended, learning how to paint a red poppy, write poetry, structure their stories, refine their character's personality and look closely at their language. At the end authors Melinda Szymanik, Tania Roxborogh, Desna Wallace, Maria Gill and illustrator/author Fifi Colston shared their latest project with the students. A fun day had by all. 

Panel talk on Children's War Books

Introducing Jenny Cooper

Jenny Cooper graduated from Christchurch Polytechnic with a Diploma of Visual Communication. She lives in an acre of land in North Canterbury, which is occasionally battered by the nor’west wind. She has a lovely studio, however she is not allowed to leave this studio until she has completed all her work. This has never happened yet. They poke thermoses of tea and slabs of chocolate through a slot in the door to keep her going.

Jenny has won many awards over the last 15 years. She won the 1998 New Zealand Post Student Stamp Design award and the 1998 Telecom New Zealand White Pages Art Award. She has been short-listed twice in the LIANZA Russell Clark Illustration Awards, for The Pipi and the Mussels by Dot Meharry (Reed, 2001) and Down in the Forest by Yvonne Morrison (Scholastic, 2004). The Mad Tadpole Adventure (Scholastic, 2007), by Melanie Drewery and illustrated by Cooper, was nominated in the junior fiction category for the 2008 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, and was listed as a 2008 Storylines Notable Junior Fiction Book.

Her other awards include: the Storylines Notable Books 2000 Picture Book list for The Wooden Fish, the Storylines Notable Books 2002 Junior Fiction list for The Great Pavlova Cover-up, the Storylines Notable Books 2003 Picture Book list for Duck Walk, the Storylines Notable Books 2008 Junior Fiction list for The Mad Tadpole Adventure, the Storylines Notable Books 2008 Picture Book list Special Mention for The Illustrated Myths & Legends of the Pacific, the Storylines Notable Books 2011 Picture Book list for Ria the Reckless Wrybill, and in 2015 won two Storylines Notable Book Awards- for A Treasury of New Zealand Poems for Children (edited by Paula Green) and for Jim's Letters (written by Glyn Harper). Jim's Letters won the New Zealand Book Awards for Children & Young Adults picture book award in 2015.

We asked Jenny to tell us something positive, something sad and something interesting she encountered while researching and illustrating Gladys Goes to War:

Something positive: The real person, Gladys, sounds like an amazing woman, I would like to have had a coffee with her, I think she would have been fun to know, and a lot of laughs.

Something sad: poor Gladys, to lose her dearly loved husband, plus both brothers, in the war. No wonder people were really mad when they had to fight another war in 1939, only 20 years after all the loss and tragedy of WW1. I would have been mad too. You would want to feel that WW1 had solved the problems, but it didn’t.

Something interesting: we had car dealerships here in Auckland as early as 1918, who knew? It was interesting finding out about very early automobiles, such as, when the first cars were used, there were no road rules, no road markings, no driving on left and right sides, people parked their cars anywhere, including in intersections, and there were terrible traffic jams. There were no sealed roads so things were really muddy. Lots of children were killed as in the 1900s, as there were no parks and children played on the streets, and were killed by speeding cars. To cope with the chaos, some cities made people drive their cars no more than 5 miles an hour, and in some places in England, you had to have a constable (police officer) walk in front of your car with a flag, to warn people.

Christchurch Workshop

Places are filling up fast for the Christchurch Book Tour Workshops. For every student who signs up for the workshops, their school has a chance to win a pack of signed books. We'll draw the winning school on Wednesday 28th September at 2.20pm.

Here's the timetable for the day:

9.30        Meet and greet, assigned group

9.45        Welcome

10.00     Workshop 1 (students rotate in five groups)

10.40     Workshop 2 (students rotate to next group)

11.20     Morning Tea     

11.35     Workshop 3 (rotate to next group)

12.15     Lunch and time to look at exhibition

1.00        Workshop 4 (rotate)

1.40        Workshop 5

2.20        Q & A time, Prize giving, book buying and signing

3.00        Finish

Whangarei Library 'What Lies Beneath Exhibition'

The 'What Lies Beneath' Exhibition travelled from Palmerston North to Whangarei for the month of August.  Librarian Glenn Davidson incorporated Anzac art from a local school into the exhibition. It looks very striking with the black and red tablecloths, too.

Palmerston North 'What Lies Beneath' exhibition in July

 Palmerston North Library hosted the exhibition during July. They also invited Glyn Harper, David Hill and Maria Gill to talk one afternoon to a gathered crowd.

What Lies Beneath Exhibition in Queenstown

The What Lies Beneath exhibition was in Queenstown during the month of June.  Children's author Jane Bloomfield interviewed Maria Gill about the exhibition and children's war books to a small crowd at Queenstown Library on Saturday 18th June.

 Some pictures of the stunning scenery in Queenstown.

Introducing Fifi Colston

Graduating in Wellington with a Diploma of Visual Communications Design, Fifi freelances with fingers in many creative pies. She is a published junior fiction novelist, children’s book illustrator of more than 30 titles and was a long standing television presenter of arts and crafts on firstly TVNZ’s ‘What Now’ and then ‘The Good Morning Show’. Fifi is a veteran of Wearable Arts; a finalist and award winner over 20 years with 22 entries in show. She has also worked with Weta Workshop, 3 Foot 7 Productions, Pukeko Pictures and The Production Shed in the New Zealand TV and film industry as a costumier, puppet maker and illustrator. When she has a moment, Fifi visits schools and community groups, inspires budding artists and writers and runs workshops in creative process.

All the answers relate to The Red Poppy

My husband’s grandfather Rothwell, wrote postcards to his fiancé Hilda, from 1914-1918. Particularly poignant were two from France; they said simply “Am O.K” and “Keep smiling!” I was in the process of scanning and blogging these cards for the family when I read David’s story.  Jim’s letter home never mentioning the horrors of the trenches struck an immediate chord with me; those cheerful words from a young man, disguising the reality of his situation. Rothwell did come home from France to be a husband and father, but was far from ‘o.k’; dying just a few short years later from the cruel ravages of his war experience. Illustrating this book was a journey through his time for me. I visited the Army Museum in Waiouru (a must see- really great!) studied WW1 uniforms up close (collected by passionate people), grew red poppies, (harder than you'd think) photographed mud (outside our house) and rubbed chalk pastel until my fingers were raw. I learned much about pastel illustration technique, but more about the horror and sadness of war. 

Introducing Anna Mackenzie

Anna Mackenzie lives on a farm in Hawke’s Bay, NZ, where she writes contemporary, speculative and historic fiction. Her nine titles have netted her seven Notable Book Awards, an NZ Post Honour Award, Sir Julius Vogel Award and other accolades. She wrote her first book when she was seven – and is very glad her mother kept it!

Anna says:

“My interest in WWI is based in family stories. I wanted to properly understand my grandfather’s and other family members’ experiences.

“A real high point of writing Evie’s War was having a writing residency in Belgium, which allowed me to thoroughly immerse myself in WWI history. I could walk battlefields, seek out buildings where hospitals had been based, study landscapes, weather, the day-to-day things our servicemen and women would have experienced. And of course, I wrote!

“Sometimes the research made me cry: standing at my great-uncle’s grave, listening to ‘The Last Post’ played beneath the Menin Gate in Ieper, walking around trenches and cemeteries – there was so much suffering and waste. It’s impossible not to feel saddened by it. But even during the very worst of it, our capacity for love and friendship – our humanity – shines through.

“I was surprised by how very real, and alive, those young men and women felt – and continue to feel – to me, and by how fascinated I’ve become by war and its aftermath. WWI isn’t yet ready to let me go.”

In addition to writing novels Mackenzie edits magazines, teaches creative writing, mentors beginning writers and travels ‘whenever it fits in’. She is Vice-President of the New Zealand Society of Authors.

Titles: High Tide (2003), Out on the Edge (2005), Shadow of the Mountain (2008); Sea-wreck Trilogy – The Sea-wreck Stranger (2007), Ebony Hill (2010), Finder’s Shore (2011); Elgard series – Cattra’s Legacy (2012), Donnel’s Promise (2013); WWI – Evie’s War (2015).

• WEBSITE: www.annamackenzieauthor.com
• FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/annamackenzie.nz.author