Happy happy 2012. 
My brand new series of picture books in te reo Maori is finally available. I am so excited that a dream I have held in my heart for more than six years has finally become a reality - thanks to the help and guidance of a lovely friend named Madelize Bekker. 

I dreamed up this fabulous idea when I was a te reo Maori student, children's author and part time kindergarten teacher in Kihikihi. It was hard to find exactly the right resources to help the preschool children I was teaching to get some Maori language skills. So what does an author do when she can't find the books she wants? She writes them herself, of course!

It was pretty easy to teach the children isolated words but very hard to give them skills to put those words into sentences. I could see that a picture book with simple repetitive sentences in te reo Maori, coupled with a CD that featured the words of the story as a song, would be a catchy way to learn. Lots of people agreed with my theory, but it took a while to get someone to catch the vision and make it possible for the books to be translated from my head into reality. Now it's happened and I'm over the moon. 

Go to the books page to see more about this exciting series of picture books with song CDs. Or just click here to go straight to my Te Reo Singalong website! See you there.