We are ending our first week in New Zealand! We have learned a lot about children's literature from bookshop owners, librarians, authors, and university professors . . . we have experienced many different New Zealand activities from the city to the beach, to the coast of the Banks Peninsula. Our students have mastered the city bus routes, shopped in local supermarkets for dinner supplies, and prepared meals in a Kiwi kitchen.

Tomorrow, we leave early (6 am!!) to take the train up the East coast of the South Island to Picton, then take the ferry across to Wellington. Lots of time for reading, and for thinking about how the culture, and the sense of place, of New Zealand, effects the children's and adolescent literature of this country.