Books great and small successes for Gavin Bishop
Funding of roles:
Maori children’s author and illustrator Gavin Bishop is acclaimed for his work here and abroad.
Maori children’s author and illustrator Gavin Bishop is acclaimed for his work here and abroad.
He won the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year award at this year’s New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults for his pukapuka Atua: Māori Gods and Heroes.
The broadsheet also won best illustration and best non-fiction categories, and the judges called it an instant classic.
Bishop says he drew inspiration from his Tainui and Ngāti Awa heritage for many of the 70 books he created over his 40-year career.
Her latest Koro/Pop and Mihi baby books are touched by young foreign readers who resonate with the idea of a mixed-race whānau.
“In Koro, koro, of course, is Maori and in the book Mihi the child is Maori but she also has pakeha whānau and that seems to strike a chord not only here but in the United States in particular, and Barnes and Noble I just picked up the books, so it’s very, very exciting,” Bishop says.
