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Máire Zepf has written 12 books for children, from picture books to a YA verse novel. Winner of the KPMG Children’s Book of the Year, the Réics Carló Award and a White Raven in 2020, her books appear in 8 languages worldwide. The Co. Down author was the first Children’s Writing Fellow for Northern Ireland, based at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at QUB (2017-19). She is Artistic Director for Quotidian - Word on the Street.
About her series, Máire said, ‘Rita is a little girl with VERY big ideas. She has lots of adventures coming up in which she dreams up fantastical solutions to ordinary problems, often with hilarious results! Each book is based around a different character and centres on a new theme. There will be robots and dragons, ninjas, genies and a fairy godmother who will help her explore notions from fairness and order to the genderisation of clothing and emotional regulation.’
Meet Rita. She’s a little girl with very big ideas. When she doesn’t feel like getting dressed in the morning, she dreams up a Fairy Godmother to help her out. Rita’s Fairy Godmother would only have to twirl her wand -swoosh! - and things would happen. But who knows what things...
Meet Rita. She’s a little girl with very big ideas. Rita loves to hide. She wants her very own ninja who will help her to train her body and mind. Hi-yaa! Then she will be quiet, quick and invisible. But when the ninja steals something close to her own heart, how will she respond?
Part of the refreshing Rita Wants series that sees a relatable, imaginative little girl think through and figure out some of life’s problems for herself, Rita Wants a Robot is wonderful to read-aloud, with Márie Zepf’s story boasting fabulous pace, and Mr Ando’s illustrations delivering a blast of boldness and textured detail. Facing with the problem of having a messy bedroom, Rita comes up with a solution. Surely having a “super-sorting robot” will fix things. Every time Rita makes a mess, mess, mess, the robot could simply sort, sort, sort! But then she gets to thinking - what if the robot didn’t know when to leave well alone? And so Rita re-thinks her idea and realises she’d be better off handling things herself. Alongside taking readers on Rita’s lively story journey, the book invites valuable interaction and discussion - would you like a robot? What do you think would happen if you had one? How would you handle a robot who didn’t know when to stop? Fun and thought-provoking stuff.
This first book in a new series about a little girl with a big imagination invites discussion of big themes (peer pressure, doing the right thing, being considerate of others) through a fun and freeing child-centred story. Writer Márie Zepf has a real knack for wry, warm-hearted humour, while illustrator, Mr Ando, delivers boldly energetic visuals readers will delight in. Rita wants a witch - of that she is 100% sure, for a witch would never tell her to go to bed, or tidy her room. A witch would never tell her to wash up, or do her homework. But then, as Rita imagines how a witch could, for example, turn her teacher into a frog, she begins to worry that her witchy dream might have a few problems. What if the witch scared her friends away, or didn’t know what to do if Rita fell ill? “A witch could ruin everything,” Rita realises, and so she changes her mind. What she really wants is her mum - a mum who sometimes dresses up as a witch! This satisfying full-circle story with a twist is great to read aloud, with every page inviting interaction and discussion.
