In this episode we talk with Andrew Henry from the Heritage Collections curatorial team, about a recent acquisition of New Zealand children’s books.

Totaling more than 500 items, the books have been donated to the library by passionate experts Diane & Gary Hebley, whose involvement in reading, creating, teaching and writing about NZ books for children spans decades. Diane as author and Gary as the illustrator.

They both received The New Zealand Children’s Literature Association’s 1997 Joint Award for Distinguished Services to Children’s Literature.

Diane served as the Course Writer and Director, The New Zealand Experience, National Diploma of Children’s Literature, (Christchurch College of Education, 1995-2001)

Listen in as Andrew shares about how this collection brings a new life to Auckland Libraries Children's Historical collection and shares a number of favourite examples from the collection.

To read more about access to the archive and about the collection see the Heritage et AL blog here: https://heritageetal.blogspot.com/2026/07/awekura-diane-and-gary-hebley-aotearoa.html

Link to collection:

https://bit.ly/4x5IYnM