The Storylines Children’s Writers And Illustrators’ National Hui

Swapna HaddowScrapbook, The Terrible Trio

Storylines hosted the Children’s Writers And Illustrators’ National Hui at Dilworth School, at the weekend, and it was jam-packed with incredible speakers from a line up of children’s writers and illustrators from across Aotearoa.

Photo (c) Storylines

I was invited to speak about writing graphic novels and talked about how The Terrible Trio series came to be and the mechanics of turning my original manuscript into a graphic novel format. I hope there are heaps of graphic novels to come from the session because it’s definitely one of my favourite formats to read.

The entire weekend left me inspired to write, with a whole bunch of new pals, and determined to do my bit to make sure we have a nation of young readers who find joy in books.

So now, I head to my desk, to plan my next project…

The Storylines Story Circle at Te Manawa

Swapna HaddowScrapbook

I headed up to the big city of Auckland on Friday to speak at the Storylines Children’s Writers and Illustrators’ National Hui but first I stopped off at Te Manawa to join Sacha Cotter, Josh Morgan, Donovan Bixley, Melinda Szymanik and the fabulous staff of the library for story time.

There was face painting, singing and of course a whole bunch of stories with a crowd of brilliant young people and their grown ups. It was so much fun and I was chuffed to bits to tell everyone all about me and my books with a little game of Two Truths and a Lie.

Thank you so much to the staff at Te Manawa and the brilliant Anne from Storylines for looking after me so wonderfully.

Storytime and Draw-along for The Line

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Thank you so much to everyone who tuned in to join Farah and I for a storytime and draw-along featuring The Line, hosted by Rosie from Scholastic Book Club Live. It was so wonderful to share this very special book with you and read you the story – and even more special, to have Farah talk us through drawing the characters.

The Terrible Trio at the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults 2026

Swapna HaddowHalfway Round the World with the Haddows, The Terrible Trio

The Terrible Trio was up for the the Wright Family Foundation Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction at the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, and Wednesday was the day of the big reveal of the winner.

I headed up to Wellington for the celebrations and started my day at Te Matapihi ki te Ao Nui, where over 1000 children descended on the library for a day of book events with the book awards finalists.

First up, was a lightening round of questions from a packed audience. I was on the panel with ‘The Lost Words’ author, Kimberley Kearney, and ‘Detective Stanley’ illustrator, Erica Harrison. We answered everything from inspiration for our books, to stumbling blocks in our creative journeys, to our favourite childhood stories.

Next up, were two back-to-back workshops with pupils ranging from Year 5 to Year 8 from all over Wellington. We created heaps of brand new stories for Zeb from The Terrible Trio and whole bunch of new characters for him to meet.

And after running out my signing pen…

… It was off to the NZCYA Book Awards ceremony at the Pipitea Marae.

The Wright Family Foundation Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction went to the awesome Graci Kim for ‘Dreamslinger’ and the overall winners were Sacha Cotter and Josh Morgan for ‘A Guide to Rocks’.

It was an incredible night of celebrating books and fostering a love of reading in young people and I was chuffed to bits to be part of it. It was a very proud moment to see The Terrible Trio up on the stage as the finalists were announced and to be sitting alongside Minky and Team Scholastic in that moment.

Thank you so much to everyone who supported and championed The Terrible Trio. It means the world to me and to Zeb, Marge and Barry.

Photography (c) Rebecca McMillan Photography

Happy Aotearoa Children’s Book Week!

Swapna HaddowHalfway Round the World with the Haddows, Scrapbook, The Terrible Trio

It’s Aotearoa Children’s Book Week and today, with the amazing help of the City of Literature, I joined Andersons Bay Primary School and Kaikorai Primary School for some Terrible Trio fun.

I started my morning at Andy Bay and read from The Terrible Trio. We then got to work creating brand new stories for Zeb the zebra, featuring toilets, the Andy Bay principal and outer space.

And then I headed to straight to Kaikorai School to meet with Year 3 and 4. As an ex-parent, it’s always so lovely to be back at the school and see so many of the brilliant teaching staff. After a quick natter, I caught up with 100 pupils to create EVEN MORE stories for The Terrible Trio. We heard about aliens, powerless superheroes and heaps of emotional moments for our zebra superhero.

I had such a wonderful time kicking off Book Week for both schools, who both have heaps more planned for the week, including read-alouds, sponsored reads and costume parades.

Happy Children’s Book Week, wherever you are and however you are celebrating – I hope you find yourself lost in a book and escaping into a new adventure.

Weaving Words with the OLA

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With National Poetry Day just on the horizon, I met with over fifty keen young writers, from around Dunedin, to talk about creating poems. The event was hosted by the awesome Otago Literacy Association and we had student teachers from the College of Education join us too.

I spoke about writing poems and then the pupils got to creating their own poems using similes, metaphors and heaps of creativity. There was so much incredible writing – I was very impressed.

Thank you to the OLA, Andrea, Trish and Su for hosting the event and to all the brilliant teachers who brought their pupils along. Happy National Poetry Day for the 28th of August, everyone!

Diplo Dinosaur wants a Roarsome Friend is out now!

Swapna HaddowRoarsome News

Diplo Dinosaur is back in a brand new series! You might remember Dr Diplo from Little Dinosaurs, Big Feelings and Little Dinosaurs, Big Questions…

Well, Diplo’s back and we get to meet him in his youth as a little dinosaur himself with very BIG feelings.

In the very first book in the series, Diplo gets a shock at school. There’s a new dinosaur-and it’s a T-rex! WORSE, it’s a T-rex that starts spending lots of time with Diplo’s best friend, Mina.

Can Diplo overcome his jealousy and learn that maybe having two friends is even more ROARSOME than one?

Illustrated throughout by Yiting Lee and brought to you by the team behind Little Dinosaurs, Big Feelings and Little Dinosaurs, Big Questions, the first book in the series has already been chosen as a highlight in Booktime Magazine:

And to top it off I’m World of Books Kids Author of the Month for August!

I hope you enjoy this very first book in the Diplo Dinosaur series – Yiting and I will be back with book two next year!

How to Stop a T-Rex from Eating your Socks is out now!

Swapna HaddowScrapbook

More bonkers dilemmas that can be solved with science and a bunch of brilliant biology experiments are out now! That’s right! Jess Bradley and I are back with the THIRD book in our Solved by Science series: How to Stop a T-Rex from Eating your Socks…

Learn to: rescue your favourite football socks from a dinosaur, help Granny grow her lunch … in space, and save Mothers’ Day with an epic rainbow bouquet!

Explore a bunch of ridiculous (and not-so-ridiculous) dilemmas – with solutions from the astonishing world of biology.

Sounds unbelievable? Test the science for yourself, with easy-to-follow experiments throughout the book!

What are you waiting for? Brian the T. rex is getting hungry …

And if you love science remember to check out How to Save Your Granny From a Runaway Train AND How to Make Diamonds From Your Pencils.

Happy reading, everyone!

The Line is out today

Swapna HaddowScrapbook

I’m so proud that The Line is finally officially out in the world. This book was written over four years ago when I was the University of Otago College of Education/Creative New Zealand Children’s Writer in Residence in 2022.

‘I would draw lines that would lasso us to our neighbours and keep us close for all time. I would draw lines that made us feel safe together.’

When a line divides the country of India, a little girl and her family are forced to leave their home. On her journey, the girl thinks about what she would do differently if she was in charge of a line with so much power. She would draw lines that brought people together, despite their differences. Her lines would make people friends. Her lines would make the world a better place.

This book is very close to my heart as the team at Scholastic brought together me, a British-Indian author, with British-Pakistani illustrator, Farah Shah, so the story represented voices from both sides of Partition. Farah’s beautiful illustrations help handle the subject matter with care, making it suitable for a young audience, wherever they are from.

Based around the historic event, but with important themes that are still very relevant today, The Line includes a spread at the back of the book with facts about the Partition of India. I hope it is shared far and wide and the message of togetherness is one that is talked about in homes, schools and libraries everywhere.

The Terrible Trio with Theydon Bois School

Swapna HaddowRoosting With Dave, Scrapbook, The Terrible Trio

I was back with Theydon Bois Primary School today and we were talking about The Terrible Trio!

In our virtual visit we chatted about story-planning, terrible superpowers and how to create a story from a pair of socks, a coconut and a plastic cup. The brilliant pupils also had heaps of questions about my books and my characters and reminded me that the Dave Pigeon series is a whopping ten years old this year!

I had such a blast talking about books – thank you, Theydon Bois!