Bob Kerr's story of a New Zealand town and its newspaper

NZ Writer and Illustrator

Bob Kerr

Changing Times – The Story of a New Zealand Town and Its Newspaper

Potton & Burton 2015  $19.99pb 32pp

ISBN 978 1 9272 1353 7

Themes: Newspaper closures/ New Zealand history

/ Sophisticated picture books/ Website extension

A small town newspaper, The New Zealand Times is about to close and Matt McPherson is off on his bike to make the last deliveries. What follows is a densely packed, easily followed history of the paper (and New Zealand ) from the time Emily and James McPherson set the first edition up by hand to the day it goes on line with its own blogspot. You can switch in to the blog at: mattsnewspaper.blogspot.co.nz which is an extension of the book and takes you into great resources such as Papers Past, an amazing animated history of typography, references to articles in Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand and on it goes.

Every page in the book is packed with information and brought to life with Bob Kerr’s magical and original illustrations. Please don’t let this book  die in a picture book box in a primary school library although of course small children will learn a lot from the illustrations. It is a book to be appreciated by much older students and once you get into the accompanying blog it’s a whole new ball game. 

It’s so good to see a new book from Bob Kerr after all this time – and did you know, his very first job was in Tokoroa, where he was born, delivering the South Waikato Times?

Year 4 up/ Age 8 up 

I took this photo of Bob signing books at the launch of Changing Times  out at the Children's Bookshop Kilbirnie on Tuesday last week. Sorry it is so dark.