A Few Personal Words

       I feel this is quite a distant blog. Publishers send me beautiful new books. I read and review most of them. I ‘publish’ them and they go whirling off into cyberspace. And that is it. Every morning I eagerly look at the ‘stats’ to see who has been viewing the blog in the last 24 hours. If the figures are to be believed eyes from places like Russia, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine and to say nothing of New Zealand have all looked at the last days posting. Are they real people I wonder? Maybe they are robots who are just in place as a counting measure! If you are real and if you felt so inclined maybe you would like to comment on some of the books – the mechanism is all set up for you.

       Some of you (the real people) will have noticed that in spite of all my good intentions I have done nothing to enhance the screens on NZ Writers and Illustrators for Children and Young People.  My excuse is that I am still in the middle of mopping up all the chaos caused by moving house 3 weeks ago. The preparing for the move took months and now it looks as though the aftermath will also take time. I do want to get on to the project which I feel will provide a valuable resource. I have all the fairly recent details for over 150 NZ writers and illustrators and, of course, more are appearing every day. This is the work load for Term One 2014.

      May I wish you all the things you need and as many as possible of the things you want for 2014. I wish you the time, the freedom and the opportunities to be able to read – and to help children and young people to find all three.