About the creators

Nicola Daly and Marion McKoy worked together on the creation of the NZ Pacific Picture Book Collection over the summer of 2011/2012. Marion wrote the book annotations and  created the activities for each book.

Here is a little more about us…

Nicola Daly
I am  a Senior Lecturer in the Arts and Language Education Department of the Faculty of Education at the University of Waikato, New Zealand, and I am passionate about the power of picturebooks in the classroom. I think my interest in picture books comes about because of my interest in both language and visual art. Picture books are amazing blends of these two areas. I also have an interest in the language used in picturebooks. I began my academic studies majoring in Japanese and Linguistics, and then completed a PhD in Human Communication Sciences. These days I am involved in language teacher education and preparing pre-service teachers for working with cultural and linguistic diversity. I also enjoy supervising postgraduate students at Masters and PhD level. For more information about my research interests, you can visit my home page.

Marion McKoy
I live in Hamilton with my hugely supportive husband and our three young children. I keep myself busy looking after the kids, teaching part time and doing renovation “projects” on our old state house. Regular visits to the beach and lots of coffee help to keep me sane!

In 1997 I obtained a Bachelor of Education degree at Waikato University and went headfirst into the big bad world of teaching! Fourteen years on, I have developed a passion for supporting children in their journey to becoming literate. I especially enjoy working with emergent readers and writers and most of my teaching has been in New Entrant classrooms. I am currently studying towards a Post Graduate Diploma in Language and Literacy Education at Waikato University.

The logo and website banner for the PPBC were designed by Michael Collins.