From one snug pukeko to ten ghostly huia, let's count Aotearoa's beautiful birds in English and Maori!
A beautiful bilingual counting board book for toddlers featuring the birds of Aotearoa, from poet Ben Brown and illustrator Helen Taylor.
Let's go visiting with Pukeko, and count up the birds together in Maori and English!
With durable card leaves at a suitable size for little hands, and gorgeous page designs that assist developing minds with nature, number and word recognition, this New Zealand-themed board book is a perfect bedtime story and a very special gift.
About the Authors:
Ben Brown (Ngati Mahuta, Ngati Koroki, Ngati Paoa) is an acclaimed writer, poet,
performer and publisher who lives in Lyttelton, New Zealand. Born in Motueka,
New Zealand, in 1962, he has previously worked as a tobacco farm labourer,
market gardener and tractor driver, and has been writing and publishing since
1992.Brown is the author of an evocative memoir, A Fish in the Swim of the
World, a number of children’s books, non-fiction works, and short stories for
children and adults, many of which have strong New Zealand nature themes. Many
of his children’s books are illustrated by the Lyttelton author and
illustrator Helen Taylor. Their te reo edition of Fifty-Five Feathers — Nga
Raukura Rima Tekau Ma Rima — (2004) was shortlisted for the 2005 LIANZA Book
Awards; the English-language edition was shortlisted for the 2005 Russell Clark
Award. A Booming in the Night won Best Picture Book at the 2006 New Zealand
Post Children’s Book Awards and was a 2006 Storylines Notable Picture Book.
The New Zealand Post judges report described A Booming in the Night as ‘a
captivating, polished and deceptively simple package — a pictorially stunning
book with an educational message that also manages to capture the cheeky
personality of one of our endangered bird species’. The book also made the
2006 Storylines Notable Picture Book list. Denis Welch, reviewing the
autobiographical A Fish in the Swim of the World in The New Zealand Listener,
found it ‘a cut above most autobiographies, giving us a vivid picture of
hard-working rural life and a wonderful portrait gallery of farm people and
family characters'. The book has been recorded by, and aired on, Radio NZ
National. Brown has said of his memoir: ‘A Fish in the Swim of the World
operates on the premise that ordinary people have worthwhile and interesting
stories to tell. Characters and events that shape them seem somehow within
reach. We can empathise with them. We can engage. There is the notion that a
life lived in a certain way has meaning, has significance, though it may not
change the world, nor even ripple its waters. And there is a desire to explore a
uniquely New Zealand experience within these ideas.’Brown was awarded the
2011 Maori Writers’ Residency at the Michael King Writers’ Centre.`In
2020 Brown delivered a lecture titled If Nobody Listens Then No One Will Know
for the annual Read NZ Te Pou Muramura Panui and edited How the F* Did I Get
Here, an anthology of poetry written by young people at an Oranga Tamariki Youth
Justice Residence facility, who had taken part in his writing workshop. In
2021 Ben Brown was appointed as the inaugural Te Awhi Rito New Zealand Reading
Ambassador for children and young people, a role which advocates for and
champions the importance of reading in the lives of young New Zealanders, their
whanau, and communities.
Helen Taylor is an award-winning children's book illustrator and an exhibiting artist with works in private collections around New Zealand and overseas.She has been illustrating books since 1992 and has been twice shortlisted for the LIANZA Children's Book Awards. In 2006, Helen won Best Picture Book in the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, with A Booming in the Night, a collaboration with writer Ben Brown. Helen has also written and illustrated a number of picture books and in 2015 her book Kakapo Dance won a Storylines Notable Picture Book Award.Helen lives in an old yellow house on a red-boned hill in the portside town of Lyttelton.
