INTO THE RIVER PROTEST MEETING WELLINGTON

    I spent the lunch hour yesterday outside Unity Books in Wellington reading my copy of Into the River at one of the ‘silent reading’ meetings. The idea for the meetings came from Emma Neale of Dunedin who assessed the book for Ted Dawe before it was published. They were held up and down New Zealand. I am not sure what happened in the other centres but our group was hardly ‘silent’. You couldn’t put all those writers and illustrators, readers and librarians together and expect them to be totally quiet. However, much reading was done. The whole place was positively BRISTLING with news media and we were also joined by a very large person in a golden gorilla suit who had a placard making some points of his (her) own although not much to do with Into the River.

 Please go to  https://www.facebook.com/RadioNewZealand

for a detailed video clip look at this protest including an interview with Susan Pearce who organised the Wellington event or, of course, just Google Ted Dawes or Into the River for an overwhelming amount of information including Emma and the Dunedin protest and  links to the Guardian newspaper UK.

There is, so I hear, more to come…