The Govt's stated reason for restricting voter enrolment in the last two weeks of the election has been speeding up the final count. But the Electoral Commission just told the Justice Select Committee that wouldn't happen - with or without the law change it would take 20 days. t.co/N0vRXHMbMt

Ruby Jones on her collaboration with @jacindaardern.bsky.social: www.thesapling.co.nz/comic-ruby-j...

The PANZ Book Design Awards are announced tonight! We asked the finalists for the children's category to quiz each other on their work shorturl.at/l6iGo

Ko He Taonga Te Toka te pukapuka mō te Rāapa o Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori. Nā Sacha Cotter rāua ko Josh Morgan (Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki, Rongowhakaata) tēnei taonga i hanga—koinei tētahi kōrero ātaahua e tūhura ana i te mahamaha, i te mōhio. shorturl.at/xSYjh

He aha te pukapuka mō te Rātū o Te Wiki o te Reo Māori? How Many Times?/Me Hia Rawa Ngā Wā?, nā Tim Tīpene rāua ko Nicoletta Benella! Ko pukapuka reorua tēnei, heoi anō, e whai take ana tēnei mō ngā ākonga reo. He ngahau te karere o te pukapuka mō ngā mātua–(whakarongo ki tō māmā!) shorturl.at/pOhYE

Nā Kimberley Ngareta Kearney (Ngāti Maniapoto, Tuhoe) rāua ko Taylor Terewai Tiave (Ngāpuhi) The Lost Words, te pukapuka tuatahi. E whakamihatia ana ngā kupu o te kaikōrero e mātou: ‘These words are our words. And they will never be lost again': shorturl.at/ccjvF

Hei whakanui i Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori, ka tukua e rima ngā Whakatauira nā ētahi pukapuka pikitia mīharo.

So much of "the economy" is fake, propped up by lies and bad behaviour, hoovering up money and pumping out shit.

'When you step into a New Zealand forest, the world changes. The light shifts, the air is damp with earth ... You feel small, but also connected to something that has been here far longer than you.' Ned Barraud on his stunning new book: shorturl.at/Fih5H

Context: this knocks back Marsden funding levels next year a whole two decades to (inflation adjusted) the same level funding as the 2005 Budget.

Kelly Ana Morey, remembered by Catherine Chidgey

plummeting literacy rates shadow our long white cloud. It would seem our meadow has not been cultivated to allow the seeds of literacy to thrive. Promises of a structured literacy reading framework are being hailed as the answer … literary-rich landscapes are not grown from a reading programme alone

I ain't doing your so called "strategic voting". I am voting as progressive as possible so that Te Pāti Māori and Pati Kākariki can drag Labour and have bargaining power.

David Hill on writing about Whina Cooper, te reo Māori and the vision and endurance of the eminent New Zealanders he has written about: www.thesapling.co.nz/interview-da...

This is a very charming interview with Josh Morgan!

Seven hours.

We're running a competition! To enter the draw to win a complete set of all the NZCYA winning books and a rare-as-hen's-teeth 2025 NZCYA tote bag please subscribe to our newsletter by the end of Thursday 28 August, by entering your details at this link: eepurl.com/ibMEE9

In a just world she would have to resign over this

@babybookdel.bsky.social tells us about the path to publication for her brand new picture book, Turkey Hurly-Burly: www.thesapling.co.nz

I'm sounding the "Cool new addition to the #WORDChch programme" klaxon!. A book launch for @rachaelking70.bsky.social - part two of the awesome Violet and the Velvets series. wordchristchurch.co.nz/programme/bo... It's on Thursday 28 August at Scorpio Books - get your free tix ASAP. ^DR

The children's literature community are normally a polite bunch, so heckling the Hon. Paul Goldsmith was out of character. Here's a blow-by-blow account of all the winners & vibes from last night's NZCYA awards: shorturl.at/jFR5s

By popular demand, we present the junior fiction finalists for the #NZCYA awards interviewing each other on their books & writing lives www.thesapling.co.nz/nzcya-2025-j... #BooksAlive @macdibble.bsky.social @exocomics.com @cravenjaney.bsky.social @rachaelking70.bsky.social @clairemabey.bsky.social

Have an election and we’ll show you who should be ordered from the fucken chamber

Five of the 29 finalists in the NZ Book Awards for Children & Young Adults are self-published. Claudia Palmer spoke with those creators for tips on self-publishing: www.thesapling.co.nz/five-authors...

@stephm1.bsky.social what a fab review! Neville and Alex worked out a daily page goal to reach the deadline... but Alex soon sped beyond it & was exhorting his father to catch up .... His excitement convinced Serena and Zoe to read it too, and soon ‘there was a lot of discussion at the dinner table

My son B & I had a LOT more to say about these books than there was room for in this article – I’m grateful to @mandyh.bsky.social & Mary-Anne Scott for these novels and the conversations they sparked

Because of his government’s underfunding GP fees are heading towards $100. 🤧👎

'It is no coincidence that declining literacy rates have coincided with sustained under-investment, devaluing and neglect of school libraries in Aotearoa' This week is Aotearoa School Library Week, but many schools around the country lack access to libraries: shorturl.at/MnLth

Omar is trying to feed his family of 11. They really want flour. You can make a difference for just one family. www.gofundme.com/f/help-omar-...

Personally I love it when the government works very hard to keep massive law changes a secret and then retrospectively releases all the information about it at 8.34pm on a Thursday www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

'The reckless and foolhardy decision to disestablish the Resource Teachers of Literacy (RTLit) by the current government will bring about a day of reckoning in the education system.' Belinda Whyte on the government's decision to disestablish RT Lits: shorturl.at/i3VEy

‘The reckless and foolhardy decision to disestablish the Resource Teachers of Literacy (RTLit) by the current government will bring about a day of reckoning in the education system’

We asked the children's specialist librarians at Wellington City Libraries what they thought of the finalists for the NZCYA Bookhub Picture Book Award ... so they took the books to story time to properly assess them! www.thesapling.co.nz/nzcya-2025-l...

Wrote a little piece on the cuts at MCH and the wider war on history in NZ. buttondown.com/unsettling/a...

'… the sensibilities of a British illustrator from the 1970s aren’t inherently the best choice for a book being published in Aotearoa in 2025' @babybookdel.bsky.social looks at the Margaret Mahy Illustration Prize, which asks unpublished illustrators to reimagine Mahy classics shorturl.at/6iLG2

Kura Rutherford and her team of student librarians assess the finalists in the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults' Best First Book Category, and award some medals of their own: www.thesapling.co.nz/nzcya-2025-n...

‘we continue to receive clear messages that the New Zealand government … is reducing their spend’ www.thesapling.co.nz/the-reckonin...

New novels for younger readers – we've got the reviews you need for school holiday reading! www.thesapling.co.nz/review-new-n...

This is a great essay from Tessa Duder, on Maurice Gee’s impact on children’s writing in NZ

Tessa Duder remembers Maurice Gee, and the controversy surrounding THE FAT MAN at the 1995 Children's Book Awards: www.thesapling.co.nz/maurice-gee-...

New tributes from @alandingley.bsky.social and @jonathanking.bsky.social added: www.thesapling.co.nz/farewell-mau...

MA24 workshop member Hannah Marshall's book It's a Bit More Complicated Than That was the winner of the Best Unpublished Author manuscript in the Storylines Tessa Duder YA Prize 2024. It will be launched at Unity Books Wellington at 6pm this evening!

In the latest in our occasional series on book people – the people behind the scenes connecting books to readers – @hannahmarsh.bsky.social interviews her publisher, Jenny Hellen of Allen & Unwin, about children's publishing in Aotearoa: www.thesapling.co.nz/book-people-...

Julia Marshall spoke with Anders Sparring and Per Gustavsson, the creators of the hilarious, delightful junior fiction series THE PINCHERS! www.thesapling.co.nz/meet-the-pin...

#ProtectPayEquity Join us at 1pm on Parliament lawn this Thursday 22 May to stand up for pay equity! #NZPol www.facebook.com/events/13771...

When your biggest angle on 'there's secret plans for a mass ethnic cleansing' is 'this plan is short on details, how would it even work? le sigh!' rather than 'maniacs are in the State Dept wanting to do crimes against humanity, they're idiots but should also be in prison'... there is a problem.

The Coalition Machine. My Stuff #Cartoon today #NZpol #Women #PayEquity #TeTiriti

Bernard Hickey: The Govt’s retrospective law wrecks 33 pay equity deals. $17 billion in wages & back-pay will not now go to over 150,000 workers. That means the $14 billion of tax cuts going mostly to landlords & highest earners are being paid for by wage cuts for the poorest NZers, mostly women.

Winter is tough says National MP whose Government cut: The Minimum Wage Food grant access from MSD Funding to foodbanks Social programmes Disability support Benefits Jobs And whose policies raised: Prescription fees Public transport fares Rates GP fees Rents/Homelessness But here’s a blanket

My husband has taught human reproduction and development to the Cambridge medics for over three decades. When people start banging on about "only two biological sexes" he starts with "which sex: genetic, hormonal, or gonadal"? Biological sex is not binary. www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-...