Amy Harrop
Waipā-based author Amy Harrop is tickled pink yet slightly surprised at just how well her children’s picture books are doing.
Children’s author Amy Harrop with her picture books and the Kunekune soft toy made to resemble one of her characters. Photo: Viv Posselt
Her recently-released fifth published book ‘Goat on a Tractor’ debuted nationally at number one on a Kete Books’ bestseller list last month.
Those lists are updated weekly to give readers an in on what’s happening in terms of Kiwi books and authors.
As September progressed, Harrop learned she had two books listed in the latest Whitcoulls Top 50 Children’s Books, a list based on readers’ votes. That 2025 list, published on September 19, listed ‘Goat on a Trampoline’ at number 40 and ‘You Can’t Come in, Kunekune!’ at number 47.
‘Goat on a Trampoline’, now on its fourth or fifth print run, was also in last year’s top 50 children’s books. The extra fillip came when she found out her Kunekune book had joined it this time.
“One on the list is fantastic… you just don’t expect to have two in there. It’s very exciting, particularly as that list is international, so you’re up against some big names in children’s literature.”
Those names Amy Harrop now sits alongside include JK Rowling, David Walliams, Roald Dahl, Dr Seuss and New Zealander Lynley Dodd.
It’s no wonder she’s a little starstruck.
Amy, who has been involved in teaching for 20 years, is structured literacy specialist at Te Awamutu Primary School. The News heard of her success via her husband Mark Harrop, who is principal at Ngāhinapōuri School and who described his wife’s recent success as ‘remarkable’.
The pair share three children and live in Pirongia. Amy, who says she writes ‘in fits and spurts’, has always been a keen reader; she assigns much of her early interest to a grandmother who loved books and who could recite Dr Seuss’s tales by heart.
It was around 2014, when she was at home with her baby son, that she thought it was time to try writing down some of the appealing rurally-oriented stories that were bouncing around her head.
She entered a couple of them into a Scholastic Publishing competition that came with a promise the publishers would read each entry. One of Amy’s, ‘There’s a Hedgehog in my Pants’, was picked up and she was paired with illustrator Ross Kinnaird. After she made their requested minor tweaks, that became her first published book.
Scholastic also published her second, ‘Who took the Toilet Paper?’, with illustrations by Jenny Cooper.
“I was feeling like I had imposter syndrome at that stage,” she said.
Her last three have been published with Bateman Books, with Ross Hamilton as illustrator. They have fun rhyming storylines, with plots around the bumbling protagonists ending with potential for a follow-up adventure. The only one Amy has written in prose is ‘You Can’t Come in, Kunekune!’
“I love writing in rhyme … it just sounds good to me. With Kunekune, I just wanted to see if I could write in prose.”
Family support has been strong. Early on, Amy’s mum shouted her an online writing course with New Zealand’s Janice Marriott. It helped validate her, she said, but the best bit is that she can now pay her mum back with proceeds from her writing.
And in a stroke of marital genius, Mark arranged for US-based company Budsies to make up a Kunekune soft toy, which Amy now trawls around when she does book launches or readings.
