On kissing and reading

Miller’s Flat children’s book author Kyle Mewburn was in Wahpeton, North Dakota, at local schools talking to students about reading and writing. Mewburn’s award-winning 28 book Kiss! Kiss! Yuck! Yuck! won the 21 North Dakota Library Association’s Flicker Tale Children’s Book Award. The book was chosen by North Dakota’s school children out of four nominees in the picture book category. In New Zealand, the book previously won the Children’s Choice award in the picture book category. Mewburn will next go to Fargo for two days and return home, having concluded his five week journey. “I’m just going to continue writing,” he said, explaining that he plans on branching out and writing junior and more adult fiction. Recently, Mewburn was named the 211 Creative New Zealand Children’s Writer in Residence at the University of Otago College of Education, an honour bestowed on only one person yearly. “It’s quite prestigious. I’m quite honoured by it,” he said. “Picture book writers don’t usually get it.”