What a year!
2019 has been, without doubt, the busiest and best year ever for Dragon Brothers Books.
Over the course of the year, I’ve visited 50 beautiful schools (including Halsey Drive School, above) where I’ve spoken to thousands of wonderful and inquisitive children. I’ve been on book tours to Kapiti Coast, Dunedin, Wellington, Christchurch, Taranaki and Waiheke Island.
I’ve been to two amazing festivals - the Nelson Arts Festival and Dunedin’s Ignition Festival of Children’s Literature.
I’ve also been overseas - to Bologna in Italy, the world’s biggest children’s book fair, where the Dragon Defenders series was picked up by a Turkish publisher and will be on the shelves there next year (especially cool, since Kerem Beyit and Suleyman Temiz, my amazing Dragon Defenders illustrators, are from there).
In September, both The Dragon Brothers trilogy of picture books, and The Dragon Defenders series made it back onto the Whitcoulls Kids Top 50 list. This is voted for by almost 15,000 kids, parents, uncles and aunties, grannies and granddads, all of whom love books.
This year The Dragon Hunters, The Dragon Tamers and The Dragon Riders came in 9th on the list, but even more exciting was that they’re the second-ranked spot for Kiwi authors behind Lynley Dodd’s wonderful Hairy Maclary series.
The Dragon Defenders series was ranked 20th overall, but took out the number 1 spot for junior fiction by a Kiwi author!
So thank you so much for all your support - I’m really chuffed that my books are being read and enjoyed by so many Kiwi kids, not least those in the Kiwi Read Aloud programme, which chose The Dragon Defenders - Book Four: All Is Lost for its reading programme this year. The stories, photos, models and performances that came from that was truly inspiring!
I’m happy to tell you that Dragon Defenders Book Five is well underway, and I’m aiming for an April/May launch next year. Progress might slow a bit now that my children are on holidays, but I promise I’ll get up early and write every morning!
Throughout this year I’ve had hundreds of incredible emails from kids and parents who love my books, and it’s the best thing ever for an author to hear. Keep them coming!
Have a wonderful holiday, and happy Christmas!
