{"id":560689,"date":"2026-08-06T10:24:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T10:24:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/560689\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T10:24:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T10:24:26","slug":"slow-is-my-favourite-speed-trish-harris-on-the-genius-of-eric-carle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/560689\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Slow is my favourite speed\u2019: Trish Harris on the genius of Eric Carle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to The Spinoff Books Confessional<\/a>, in which we get to know the reading habits of Aotearoa writers, and guests. This week: author of Out of the Box: 25 Deaf & Disabled Artists, Activists & Adventurers From Aotearoa NZ<\/a>, Trish Harris.<\/p>\n

The book I wish I\u2019d written<\/p>\n

Dream Work by Mary Oliver. It\u2019s a collection of 45 poems and it often sits on my bedside table. A poem before sleep helps settle the day\u2019s thoughts. Her poems are clear and crisp, and deep, and I love them for their earthiness, their spirituality and their provocations. I read a book of her essays a few years ago and it made me realise her connection to nature is at a whole different level \u2013 like she\u2019s of nature.<\/p>\n

The book everyone should read<\/p>\n

Everyone should read Becoming a Person \u2013 The Biography of Robert Martin by John McRae because his story provides unique insights into what it was like to grow up in institutions in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s in Aotearoa. It is a tough story to read, but there is also humour and celebration. It also gives context to the Abuse in Care Inquiry\u2019s findings<\/a>. I always knew that Sir Robert Martin needed to be featured in Out of the Box<\/a> because his contribution in advocating for and representing other people with learning disabilities is still not widely known in this country \u2013 even though he\u2019s well-known overseas. I\u2019d hoped to get to meet him, but sadly he died while I was still writing his profile for the book.<\/p>\n

The book I want to be buried with<\/p>\n

I\u2019m trusting my unconscious with this choice. After having no clue what my answer would be, it came up with a favourite picture book of mine: \u201cSlowly, Slowly, Slowly,\u201d Said the Sloth by Eric Carle. The book could rest on my chest and slowly, slowly, slowly it and I could decompose \u2013 leaving bones and titanium. \u201cSlow\u201d is my favourite speed, not just for walking, but for completing any task \u2013 including writing a book! I definitely don\u2019t see myself as slothful and it turns out neither does the Sloth, despite what his rainforest mates might think. Sloth accepts his pace of living and in the disability world we also have a phrase for that: Crip Time.<\/p>\n

\"ThreeFrom left to right: the book Harris wishes she\u2019d written; the book she thinks we all need to read; and the book she\u2019d be buried with.
\nThe first book I remember reading by myself<\/p>\n

The Donkey\u2019s Egg, book number three in the Ready to Read series. I was at school, maybe five or six years old \u2013 definitely at the age where your finger is sliding along underneath the text, keeping track of words. The great thing about this story was the joke in it \u2013 spoiler alert, the donkey\u2019s egg was actually a pumpkin. Great five-year-old humour! Anyone who recognises the other books in the series probably learnt to read in the 1960s and 70s as well: Hungry Lambs, Boat Day, Sweet Porridge, The Stars in the Sky and Sliding & Falling.<\/p>\n

Fiction or non-fiction?<\/p>\n

I feel like I should say non-fiction, because that\u2019s what I\u2019ve just written. But I like reading fiction and do read more of it than non-fiction. Fiction writers aren\u2019t constricted, they\u2019re creating the plot, throwing things at the characters and making them respond \u2013 sometimes to dire situations. I like losing myself in the world of the story. A book I read recently that did that for me is Time of the Child by Niall Williams.<\/p>\n

The book that made me laugh<\/p>\n

Gridlock by Ben Elton. This is a rollicking satirical adventure \u2013 an oldie but a goodie. I loved the way Ben Elton wrote about disability \u2013 it\u2019s a masterclass of show not tell. Geoffrey\u2019s impairment is not named until you\u2019re well into the adventure. And there is a standout scene when Deborah, who is a wheelchair user, is interviewed for a job, and the wheelchair slowly grows to take up the whole interview space. It\u2019s a funny, telling and fast-paced read. Might be time to read it again.<\/p>\n

If I could only read three books for the rest of my life they would be<\/p>\n

Philip Pullman\u2019s His Dark Materials trilogy squashed into one volume so they count as one book; Michael Leunig\u2019s The Curly Pyjama Letters; and Dance Me to the End of Love, a picture book of Leonard Cohen\u2019s song paired with Matisse\u2019s artwork. <\/p>\n

Encounter with an author<\/p>\n

I grew up in Plimmerton, not far from Hongoeka Bay where Patricia Grace lived. When I read Potiki, I could see that coastline, I knew it. In my 20s I lived in Melbourne for a year and one day when I was feeling homesick, I saw that Patricia Grace was a visiting speaker at their writers\u2019 festival. I went, and braved going up to her afterwards and introducing myself as a fellow Plimmertonian. We talked about our love of that coastline.<\/p>\n

\"ThreeFrom left to right: the book that made Harris laugh; her own wonderful book; and the book she\u2019s reading right now.
\nBest place to read<\/p>\n

Sitting on the couch, or my blue chair, when the sun is inching across it, book-seat (like an upright bean bag for books) with a book nestled in it so reading can be hands-free, and a hot drink and snack nearby. Mainly I read at night before sleep so daytime reading is my idea of luxury, especially when I break the \u201conly one more chapter and then get back to work\u201d rule. <\/p>\n

What I\u2019m reading right now<\/p>\n

Occasional Magic produced by The Moth, a nonprofit that sends people out in front of an audience to tell their true stories. It\u2019s a book of 50 stories and there\u2019s one that I particularly enjoyed called \u2018Honku\u2019 about Aaron who, after pelting eggs at car horn honking drivers in the street outside his apartment, decided he needed to find a non-aggressive way to handle the frustration, and settled on just observing the honking, boiling those observations down into pithy haiku \u2013 which he called honku \u2013 and then pasting them in the middle of the night onto lamp posts round the neighbourhood. Haiku \u2013 or rather honku \u2013 as a political act!\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Out of the Box by Trish Harris ($45, Otago University Press) is available to purchase at Unity Books.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to The Spinoff Books Confessional, in which we get to know the reading habits of Aotearoa writers,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[489,156,111,139,69,2507],"class_list":["post-560689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-books","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-the-spinoff-books-confessional"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}