Under normal conditions, West Auckland writer, poet and blogger extraordinaire Paula Green would be travelling around the country right now introducing her two new books to her most ardent fans: schoolchildren.
Roar Squeak Purr: A New Zealand Treasury of Animal Poems, edited by Green, is a handsome, whimsical illustrated collection of poetry by children and notable “grown-up” writers, including its editor, which was published this month.
The other book, also out now, is Little Tales of Hedgehog and Goat, an illustrated story about adventure and friendship aimed at readers aged six and over.
The format of a novel is a first for Green, who received the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry in 2017, the same year she was made a member of the NZ Order of Merit for services as a poet and to literature.
Hedgehog and Goat slipped into the world quietly. When Green received her advance copy, she was a long-stay patient in Auckland City Hospital’s Motutapu Ward, part of its haematology and blood services, undergoing a bone marrow transplant to treat myelofibrosis, a variant of blood cancer.
“I was sitting in the hospital by
