Summer School 2026: Indigenous Voices in Children's Literature

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10289/17954

Nau mai, haere mai to recordings of lectures from our first Summer School focusing on Indigenous Voices in Children’s Literature held from February 2-5, 2026 at the Hamilton campus of Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato - The University of Waikato, Aotearoa New Zealand. Here are some of the reasons we wanted to host this summer school:

While there is some research concerning inclusivity practices in the children’s literature that we see in libraries, homes and publishing houses, little work exists that examines how the publishing process can contribute to increased diversity in children’s picturebooks, particularly in relation to Indigenous languages and cultures. International research shows that the cultural and linguistic diversity evident in children’s picturebooks lags far behind such diversity in society. This lack of diversity has implications for literacy engagement and the perpetuation of social inequalities.

This Kaupapa (topic) also links to a three-year research project being done by researchers at The University of Waikato (Julie Barbour, Nic Vanderschantz and Nicola Daly) and independent researcher Dr. Darryn Joseph in conjunction with colleagues at HUIA Publishers of Pōneke, Wellington in Aotearoa New Zealand (Eboni Waitere, Pania Tahau-Hodges, Kawata Teepa, Te Kani Price and Bryony Walker) in which we explore how authentic Indigenous picturebooks are created at HUIA. You can read more here

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Now showing 1 - 5 of 5

Changing representations of indigenous identity through the language of picturebooks
(2026-02-03) Barbour, Julie Renee
How do picturebook writers express Indigenous identities? How can picturebooks support readers to develop their understandings of Indigenous languages and cultures? In this lecture, we will focus on picturebooks published by Indigenous publisher HUIA, focusing on representations of te reo Māori (the Indigenous Māori language). In addition to identifying words and phrases from te reo Māori, we will consider how writers position those words in text to support reader comprehension, and how illustrators contribute to and enhance our understandings of cultural meanings. Unfolding research in this area points to shifting methods in writing that enhance the reader's access to new knowledge.
Indigenous data sovereignty
Tahau-Hodges, Pania
Indigenous peoples have long recognised storytelling as a vital mechanism for transmitting knowledge, culture, and identity (Hodge, Pasqua, Marquez, & Geishirt-Cantrell, 2002; Rani & Raj, 2023). Yet across colonised nations, the power to shape and share Indigenous stories – particularly in children’s literature – has often rested in the hands of non-Indigenous creators and institutions (Barnwell, 2021; Hampton & DeMartini, 2017). This lecture explores the concept of story sovereignty in the context of Māori children’s picturebooks, asking: What happens when Indigenous peoples reclaim authorship and editorial control over our own narratives for children? Drawing on doctoral research that includes data from research conversations with Indigenous publishing practitioners and creative practice-based inquiry, this lecture centres on story sovereignty as both a conceptual and practical framework for reclaiming control over Indigenous narratives (Sium & Ritskes, 2013; Whiteduck, 2013). It critically examines the power dynamics embedded in the publishing industry, where Indigenous voices and ways of knowing continue to be marginalised (Sengupta, 2023). At the same time, it highlights the transformative potential of story sovereignty – where Māori exercise tino rangatiratanga (self-determination) over our stories, determining which stories we want to tell, how we tell them, and who we tell them to (Whiteduck, 2013). Findings suggest that Indigenous-led creation of  picturebooks can be a powerful act of resistance and resurgence – cultivating cultural memory, promoting wellbeing, and contributing to the realisation of mana motuhake (control over one’s destiny) and tino rangatiratanga (Sium & Ritskes, 2013; Sengupta, 2023). Through an Indigenous lens, this lecture explores the significance of story sovereignty in children’s publishing and argues that reclaiming narrative power is not only a political act, but also a vital expression of cultural survival and self-determination (Hampton & DeMartini, 2017).
Sense and sensibilities: Translating picturebooks into te reo Māori
(2026-02-05) Joseph, Darryn; Teepa, Kawata
What goes through the mind of an expert translator as they take a European language and transform the text into a Polynesian one? Should it be a literal translation, a poetic translation or full of common slang and uncommon idiom? What is more important here - the translation, the story or the reader? This lecture and workshop walk you through the decision-making behind turning English language picturebooks into the Māori language appropriate for a Māori audience. We dive into Tūhoe translator Kawata Teepa's processes from his first book at HUIA Publishers Ngārimu: te Tohu Toa to the many books with Sacha Cotter and Josh Morgan: Ngā Kī (2014), Te Kaihanga Māpere (2016), Te Pohū (2018) and Ringa Kōreko (2023). What did it take for Kawata to bring these stories to life in te reo rangatira? Are there translation concepts and methods that we can generalise and take away with us for our own creative projects?
The picturebook: The intergenerational pretzel
(2026-02-04) Price, Te Kani
Picturebooks, as a finite and static object become a temporal anchor point for different generations of audience. Each audience group will have different motivations to purchase or engage with a picturebook. As a designer how do you cater for an audience driven by nostalgia, one for the now and another reader a future generation from now. Not to mention the historical journey the story itself may have taken prior to being immortalised in a book. In this presentation I will explore my process as a picturebook designer from both an audience and a marketplace perspective.
Indigenous children’s literature in Canada: Ethical teaching, research, and librarianship
(2026-02-03) Harde, Roxanne
In the introduction to his edition of Indigenous writing from the decades between 1890 and 1930, Frederick Hoxie argues that by “talking back to those who considered themselves superior,” these authors “rejected the self-serving nationalism they heard from missionaries and bureaucrats [and] made it clear that they refused to accept the definitions others had of them⎯savage, backward, doomed” (8). In her studies of earlier Indigenous writers, Abenaki historian Lisa Brooks delineates the myriad ways in which Indigenous peoples have always talked back to colonialism. This history of talking back to the dominant discourse necessarily involves writing for children, these days as part of the project of decolonisation as Indigenous writers offer children counterstories that work to champion their own narratives, often through stories about residential schools in North America. The systematic and purposeful governmental removal of Inuit, Métis, and First Nations children and incarceration in the schools became a major focus of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s hearings and recommendations, and this removal and its consequences are the subject of several children’s books written by Indigenous authors. This presentation outlines how those books come into being, then draws on theorists including Brooks, Daniel Justice (Cherokee), Robin Kimmerer (Potawatomi), and Leanne Simpson (Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg) to demonstrate how, by offering representations of removal from healthy families and child resistance to residential schools, these books talk back to dominant interpretations of Indigenous peoples and colonial history.

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