Children’s book series makes finals

PRESS RELEASE 23 September 2012

Children’s book series makes finals of Māori Language Awards

A series of picture books written by a children’s author who started learning Māori just 10 years ago has been named as a finalist in this year’s Māori Language Awards.

Te Reo Singalong, written by Hamilton author Sharon Holt, is one of three finalists in the private sector division of the awards. Sharon started writing the books while working as a part time teacher at Kihikihi Kindergarten several years ago. A non-Māori, Sharon had also been learning the language at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa.

She wrote the books to fill a gap in the resources available to teachers in early childhood and lower primary school classes who wanted to teach te reo Māori
but lacked confidence in using the resources available to them.

“I wanted to make it really easy for teachers to pick up a book and share a story in
te reo with the children,” she says. To achieve this, Sharon made the books interactive by including a song CD to aid pronunciation.

Sharon also wanted the books to teach simple sentence structure, because many of the books aimed at new students of the language concentrated on single words. “You could learn that kakariki was green, but you couldn’t learn how to say anything about kakariki in a sentence.”

“Each of the books in the series uses simple repetitive sentences that children pick up really quickly because of the catchy tune played on the CD. It’s a great way for children and teachers to learn together,” she says.

The first two books in the series – Maranga Mai (Wake Up) and Kei te Peke Ahau
(I am Jumping) – sold out after only eight months. The second editions are now available, as well as a new book called Anei Kē! (Here it is!).

Sharon expects to release a new book in the series every six months. She writes the books in te reo and gets the language checked by three Māori mentors. The illustrations are done by Waikato children’s book illustrator Deb Hinde, and the words are put to music and sung by musicians Graeme Stewart and Stacy Walker. The books are available in book shops, from online booksellers and from her website www.tereosingalong.co.nz

The awards ceremony for this year’s Māori Language Awards will be held in Tauranga on 16 November.

© Scoop Media