Our projects
WaiPRU annual picturebook seminar
Staff: Nicola Daly and Janette Kelly-Ware
Years: 2016 - current
The core event of our annual calendar is the WaiPRU picturebook seminar usually held in November. This is a day long seminar featuring presentations from librarians, teachers, authors, illustrators, publishers and researchers.
In previous years our themes have been as follows:
2016 Picturebooks and Diversity
2017 Postmodern Picturebooks
2018 Gods Monsters and Taniwha in Picturebooks
2019 Non Fiction Picturebooks
2020 Silent Picturebooks
2021 Languages and Picturebooks
2022 Perspectives on Disability and Inclusion in Picturebooks
Exploring Pasifika Picturebooks in ECE settings
Staff: Janette Kelly-Ware and Nicola Daly
Years: November 2021 - present
The aim of this ongoing project is to assist Early Childhood Education (ECE) kaiako to select and use Pasifika picturebooks to support and celebrate Pasifika children’s languages, cultures and identities, and support other children’s understandings in keeping with expectations in Te Whāriki and Tapasā (Ministry of Education, 2017; 2018). There is little resource-specific information currently available to ECE kaiako to support their work in these areas. This project is being led by Dr. Janette Kelly-Ware and we are partnering with four ECE settings to explore how kaiako and tamariki respond to picturebooks featuring Pacific communities and languages.
Typography in bilingual picturebooks
Staff: Nic Vanderschantz and Nicola Daly
Date: 24/03/2022
This project explores the design and presentation of typography in bilingual picturebooks. Our research includes critical analysis of the language hierarchies and typographic hierarchies in New Zealand picturebooks featuring Te Reo Māori and English, and has developed design principles for book designers to consider when laying out text in bilingual picturebooks. We have also worked with two postgraduate students to explore how readers respond to these layouts in German-English and Te Reo Māori-English picturebooks.
WaiPRU Picturebook Club
Staff: Nicola Daly and Janette Kelly-Ware
Years: 2016 - current
WaiPRU runs a weekly (during the teaching trimester) picturebook club. Originally this was in person, but we began having our meeting online in 2022 due to Covid restrictions, and have decided to continue this as it allows for participation from across the country (and internationally).
We focus on international picturebooks in Trimester A each year (March-June), and New Zealand picturebooks in Trimester B (July-October). We aim to have fun and laugh, and sometimes a moving picturebook even makes us cry. You can join for a week here and there- whenever it works for you. You don’t have to attend every session- just come when you can. Here is the Zoom Link: https://waikato.zoom.us/j/88325405165
WaiPRU Illustrator exhibitions
Staff: Nicola Daly and Janette Kelly-Ware
Years: 2021 - present
Each year WaiPRU invites a picturebook illustrator to share their work, exploring how, where and why they illustrate picturebooks in an exhibition at the Teaching Resources Library at the Hamilton campus of the University of Waikato (March-May). Towards the end of their exhibition we invite them to give a talk which we record and share on our website.
In 2021, Nikki Slade-RobInson shared her wonderful picturebooks, and in 2022, Deborah Hinde was invited to exhibit her work. On May 25 Deborah shared a fascinating talk via Zoom about her work as an illustrator (see link).
Using picturebooks in tertiary education
Staff: Janette Kelly-Ware, Julie Barbour, Marilyn Blakeney-Williams and Nicola Daly
Years: 2013 - present
Since 2013 we have completed a number of studies describing and analysing how picturebooks can be used in university settings in a range of contexts including teacher education, and linguistics.
Language and picturebooks
Staff: Nicola Daly and Janette Kelly-Ware
Years: 2021 - present
In this talk featuring publishers Eboni Waitere (Huia Publishers) and Julia Marshall (Gecko Press).
We explore language and picturebooks. Watch replay
Summer Scholars
Staff: Janette Kelly-Ware and Nicola Daly
Years: 2016 - present
Over the years WaiPRu has been lucky to work with several Summer Scholars through the university Summer Scholar programme.
In 2016 Kate Morgan explored using picturebooks to support understandings of queer cultures, gender and family diversity ; In 2020 Cushla Foe (Bottom middle) identified and analysed picturebooks published since 2013 featuring Pacific communities and languages, and in 2021 Angela Fuimaono (bottom right)observed now kaiako and tamariki in a Pacific ECE setting responded to picturebooks focusing on Pacific communities and languages.