By every measure, Claire Mabey is a busy person: Verb Wellington founder, books editor at The Spinoff, and author. This year alone she has had two new books published, Raven's Eye Rebellion, a sequel to her debut The Raven's Eye Runaways, which won Best First Book at the 2025 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, and her first picture book Cass and the Beast, which has been published this month.

This year she's also been awarded the 2026 Lynley Dodd Children's Writers Award, and so it seems like a great time to ask for her favourite picture books from Aotearoa! Check out the list below for the stories she read with her son as a baby and onward.

When my son was born we were given, as well as many tiny articles of clothing, an abundance of picture books. Beautiful, sturdy board books that would, over time, crumble with the weight of our attention. I wondered why I never stopped reading them! Picture books are marvels: short, expansive, tricksy, funny, warm-hearted, atmospheric, deeply satisfying and wonderfully comforting.

Reading to my son brought back wave after wave of memories of being read to when I was little. Those books were the foundation of my own personal library: the one that lives in my brain, my bones. A whole new world of picture books was built on top of those memories as we discovered more and more, together.

Here are our five favourites:

Jam by Margaret Mahy

Margaret Mahy is my favourite writer. I read and re-read her all the time. This picture book made a huge impression on me when I was a child and I knew I had to read it to my son, who loved it too. It’s a domestic horror story at heart: it starts off all delicious with Mr Castle making plum jam from the abundant fruit dropping all over the lawn. He makes so much that every vessel in the house is filled with the stuff and jam is the foundation of every meal. After months of jam eating the family begin to have nightmares. This is the double-page spread I love the most: every single person inside their own imaginative world harassed in different ways by jam! It has the most ominous ending, too. It’s funny, relatable and just a touch scary. And did you ever think jam could be frightening?! No! Mahy has such a knack for the domestic uncanny and I can’t get enough. Plus there’s a recipe for plum jam at the back which my son and I made and it is delicious (just don’t have too much).

The Kuia and the Spider by Patricia Grace and Robyn Kahukiwa

I adore this book. I love Kahukiwa’s illustrations, especially the cover image with the glimpse of the land and sea out the window; the beautiful place that the Kuia and the Spider inhabit. I love the competitive relationship between the two weavers and how that competition sustains and entertains them. I love the grandchildren, both human and spider, and how they show all the uses for their grandmothers’ weaving, how that artform creates space, vessels, purpose and beauty. It’s a funny, bold, beautiful book and one I have read at least 50 times or more.

Hairy Maclary, Shoo by Lynley Dodd

I’m not sure it’s possible to write about picture books without honouring the place of Lynley Dodd. Her rhyme and rhythm are impeccable: not a syllable out of place. Hairy Maclary, Shoo has such tension to it! Poor Hairy Maclary sprinting around the town unwanted and treated like a little beast! When I was little I had a scruffy little dog who used to go and steal the neighbour’s cat’s bowl and was often shooed away from backyards that didn’t belong to him. Little Hairy reminds me of him and the sneaky games he’d play.

Dazzlehands by Josh Morgan and Sacha Cotter

Josh and Sacha make the most brilliant books. I love everything they do. Pink is my son’s favourite colour and so Dazzlehands is a special one for us. I love the subversion of the farmyard animal story with wicked 80s fashion! Pig is so beautifully fun, and free and sparkly: the pig we all want to be if we’re brave enough. My favourite is the farmer, though. I just love his clothes and want them.

The Longest Breakfast by Jenny Bornholdt and Sarah Wilkins

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve read this book. It’s one of those rare stories that really sees the adult reader: exhausted, tired, mildly stressed yet amiable – an adult just trying to get the kids fed and the questions answered. Sarah Wilkins’ illustrations are exquisite: loose and precise at the same time. The heart of the story is the baby who is very clearly telling Malcolm what he’d like for breakfast but it takes a whole raft of children, who live in the house and beyond it, to help decipher the baby’s ingenious way of articulating it! It’s a languid, long, funny story with a deliciously satisfying ending that dissolves all of the mild stress and lets a parent relax into their morning coffee, just in time for lunch.

Cass and the Beast by Claire Mabey, illustrated by Jill Calder, $29.99 RRP, Gecko Press.

Cass and the Beast is the first picture book from Claire Mabey, an established author of two junior fiction novels and recently announced recipient of the Lynley Dodd Children's Writers Award.

When a fearful beast arrives in the township, Cass finds her courage and is rewarded with a wild and magical journey. The creature takes her on a thundering ride through a forested landscape, leaving the town and people far behind. In the wilderness that is home to the beast, Cass finds adventure, ferocity, and gentleness. And the beast finds its name.