I am too old to die young, but one of my life long interests has been getting children to read good literature. For 9 years I purchased fiction and picture books for the National Library's Schools' Collection and during that time read so many books that I accidentally became a specialist in children's literature.

I talk to many school classes, at conferences of teachers and librarians and have spoken at the past ten South Island Children's librarians' conferences, a task I thoroughly enjoy. For the past 3 years I have been a judge of the LIANZA Book Awards and currently I am working as a Reference Librarian and fiction specialist with the Curriculum Information Service of the National Library in Christchurch.