Ponsonby Road’s great celebration of NZ Book Month

Media release: Saturday 31 October, 2009, Ponsonby, Auckland

All Fired Up: Ponsonby Road’s great celebration of New Zealand Book Month

As New Zealand Book Month festivities draw to a close this Saturday, 31 October, the finale promises to be a show stopper, showcasing one of New Zealand’s best-loved authors on a refurbished fire engine surrounded by celebrities on Auckland’s Ponsonby Road.

Book Activists in Auckland City demonstrated superb taste in selecting The 10pm Question by Kate De Goldi as their New Zealand Book Month book – before news broke of its multi-award winning trajectory. It’s a book full of the questions and fears of Frankie, the youngest of three children, and tomorrow’s event aims to answer and allay all those questions and fears that the fans of the book may have by filling the street with fun and spot prizes (books & smoke alarms).

At 11am the public are invited to attend Ponsonby’s giant book club at the Ley Institute with tea and cookies. Then the adventure begins as Kate De Goldi climbs aboard a rehabilitated fire engine and is driven along Ponsonby Road.

At 12 noon, 12.20 and 12.40 – Watch out for the celebrities, stars & famous faces who will be seated on couches at 3 street corners down Ponsonby Road, where the fire engine is scheduled to make its 3 stops, ready to greet Kate, read from the book, and ask their burning 10pm questions!

Then at 1 pm – all who have become captivated, enthralled, entertained, are invited to that Ponsonby institution, the Women’s Bookshop, for signings and to meet Kate in person.

The 10pm Question by Kate De Goldi won the Young Adult Fiction category and the Book of the Year Award at the New Zealand Post Book Awards this year. It also won the Reader’s Choice Award at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards; was a finalist for the LIANZA Esther Glen Award; shortlisted for the Nielson BookData Booksellers’ Choice Award; is selected for the prestigious international White Ravens publication and now that it’s been published in Australia, it is on the longlist for the Australian Silver Inky Awards.

This is the fourth year that New Zealand Book Month has been held.

Notes for editors:

Celebrities confirmed to take part to-date include: Erin Simpson and colleagues from The Erin Simpson Show; Lisa Chappell (currently screening as Sophie in The Cult); Miriama Kamo; and officers from the 2009 New Zealand Firefighters’ Calendar (supporting child cancer)

New Zealand Book Month 2009 runs from 1 to 31 October. This is our last big event for the month. www.nzbookmonth.co.nz

The 10pm Question has sold more than 15,000 copies in New Zealand since its publication in September 2008.

ENDS

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