The School Journal will be 100 years old in May 2007. A Nest of Singing Birds: One hundred years of the New Zealand School Journal - a fullcolour, lavishly illustrated book by award-winning writer Gregory O'Brien - celebrates, in words and images, the publication that over the last hundred years has shaped the country we live in. "A nest of singing birds" is how the School Journal office was once described to poet and Journal editor Alistair Campbell. Over the course of its history, the School Journal has attracted work from some of New Zealand's greatest writers and artists, among them Margaret Mahy, James K. Baxter, Janet Frame, Rita Angus, Russell Clark, and Dick Frizzell. Poet, painter, essayist, editor, curator, and art writer Gregory O'Brien has a prolific literary output. His most recent book, Welcome to the South Seas: Contemporary New Zealand Art for Young People (AUP, 2004) offers a vivid introduction to contemporary New Zealand art. won both the non-fiction category of the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults 2005 and the Elsie Locke Award at the LIANZA Children's Book Awards 2005. Gregory O'Brien is also the curator of the exhibition A Nest of Singing Birds, which will accompany the launch of the book. The exhibition begins at the National Library Gallery in Wellington in late April 2007.

Accolades

Winner of Montana New Zealand Book Awards: Reference & Anthology Category 2008.
Shortlisted for Nielsen BookData New Zealand Booksellers' Choice Award 2008.