Happy Diwali to all of you! I hope your year is full of light, love and stories. It’s made my day to hear about so many of you sharing The Night Before Diwali with your loved ones and in your classrooms. Keep up the awesome reading!
And those of you doing the activities from All About Diwali do share your creations – I’d love to see them!
Happy, happy Diwali!
Just in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas, Dave and Skipper have jumped on the turkey bandwagon. They are back with a brand new story and their shiniest cover yet in Dave Pigeon (Turkey Dinner!).
It’s the most wonderful time of the year: there’s frozen white dust on the ground, the Human Lady has decorated her nest with shiny things, and the scent of scrumptious goodness is wafting from the kitchen . . . But then Tinkles the Canary comes with unprecedented news. That tasty smell is not just deliciousness with a sprinkling of yumminess . . . It’s the smell of TURKEY – a turkey being COOKED!
Can Dave and Skipper save a bird that’s delivered in a plastic wrapper? (Probably not. But they are going to try their hardest anyway!)
Happy Reading and Happy Turkey Dinner Day to you all! I hope you enjoy Dave and Skipper’s latest adventure.
I’m so pleased that BookTrust has selected Reggie Rabbit: The Great Carrot Heist to be part of their Great Books Guide 2025-2026.
The selection of 100 books is a fabulous guide to help stock your libraries or even your Christmas stockings. Explore the full collection here.
The Terrible Trio are on the shelves at Dunedin City Library! To celebrate, I ran a character and crafts workshop in the story pit.
We made capes, decorated penguins and I read from the book. We then we created heaps of brand new terrible superheroes including a poo-walking pigeon and a torpedo-eating elephant.
Thank you to everyone who came along and created awesome new characters and capes. You were all brilliant! Thank you also to the staff at the library who always make me feel so at home when I visit.
Scholastic invited me to share my thoughts on funny books. You can have a read of the post here.
Thank you to the 150 schools who signed up to hear all about The Terrible Trio with Scholastic Book Club Live – that’s a whopping 4500 pupils who joined in!
I loved sharing a reading from the book and the inspiration behind the story. Minky’s drawalong was so much fun – I can’t wait to see all your drawings of Barry. Do send them in to Swapna Haddow HQ and I’ll add them to the awesome gallery of work.
Stay terrible and happy reading!
Thank you to everyone who joined Darshika, Rosie and I for a Diwali storytime today. I had such a blast reading The Night Before Diwali with you all and I can’t wait to see your Diwali-inspired pictures from Darshika’s drawalong. Do send them to Swapna Haddow HQ so I can add them to my awesome online gallery.
Happy reading and happy Diwali for next month!
We’re having all the celebrations today at Swapna Haddow HQ because it is double publication day with Scholastic UK!
First up, The Night Before Diwali is out today and just in time for Diwali next month:
Join a little boy and his grandmother as they plan for the BEST DIWALI EVER! There are diyas to light, laddoos to roll and beautiful rangoli patterns to make! Can they get everything ready in time to throw their biggest Diwali celebration yet?
This is my Diwali-twist on the traditional ‘Night Before Christmas’ poem with Darshika Varma’s illustrations beautifully capturing the joy of celebrating Diwali. It features a Diwali fact sheet and a delicious laddoo recipe – I really hope young readers absolutely love this book.
And it’s also publication day for The Terrible Trio in the UK and they have their very own UK cover:
Let me know if you spot The Terrible Trio out in the wild in the UK or anywhere else in the world and HAPPY READING to you all!
It’s finally the day The Terrible Trio: The (not so) Superheroes hit bookshop and library bookshelves across the world. Yes, that’s right! It’s a world takeover! The Terrible Trio has officially sold into SIXTEEN territories and there is more on the way!
In a world where all animals have superpowers, Zeb the zebra, Margarine the penguin, and Barry the lemur have the WORST powers of all.
Zeb, Margarine, and Barry end up at the back of the line to have the Superpower Manager grant them their superpowers and end up getting the short end of the stick. Margarine is granted the special ability to make macaroni and cheese. Barry is gifted with the power to write neatly. And Zeb can now blend in with a zebra crossing.
Working at a café and watching everybody else save the world day in and day out, Zeb, Margarine, and Barry wonder if they will ever get to be superheroes for a day themselves…
Written by me and illustrated by the awesome Minky Stapleton, The Terrible Trio books are a fun graphic novel series perfect for young readers, full of hilarity, friendship and the struggle of folding napkins. Reviews are in and here is a brilliant one in the NZ Herald:
And THANK YOU to absolutely EVERYONE who put this trio of buddies on the bestseller list! It is an absolute dream come true and I hope you enjoyed their adventures.
We have free downloadable activity sheets here and there are free teacher notes here for teachers, librarians and homeschoolers too.
Happy reading, everyone! You are all superheroes because reading is a superpower. I hope you love this book as much as I do!
Earlier this week, The Terrible Trio goodie boxes were sent out…
The Terrible Trio then landed in the University Book Shop window…
Well, that could only signal one thing… THE TERRIBLE TRIO SUPER PARTY BOOK BIRTHDAY LAUNCH was on!
Dunedin turned out to pack University Book Shop and help Minky and I celebrate the launch of The Terrible Trio, which is out on the 2nd of September. It was incredible to see so many family and friends and make so many new friends too.
We introduced everyone to the characters of the book, the trio of animals with the worst superpowers in the world: Zeb the zebra, Margarine the penguin and Barry the lemur and in honour of the book, had a competition to see who had the worst superpower with a joint that extends too far being the winner.
There were super cupcakes from Criollo Cakes, a super photo booth hosted by Moment Booth, a super zebra, a super dress up and cape competition and of course we couldn’t resist a reading and drawalong.
Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart to everyone who turned up to celebrate with us.
I’m so extremely thankful to have such a wonderful community of booklovers around me who are raising the next generation of booklovers. You are all terribly brilliant – you even got us into the UBS Weekly Top Five!
If you spot The Terrible Trio in the wild do let me know – I’d love to know where Zeb, Marge and Barry have travelled to.
